


Falling in Love is like the Spring

by NecromanticNoir



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Amputation, Angst, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Car Accidents, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Snarry-A-Thon16
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-11
Updated: 2016-05-11
Packaged: 2018-06-05 12:42:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6704923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NecromanticNoir/pseuds/NecromanticNoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To his horror, Harry receives a letter of undying love and devotion from Snape. Before he can reply, he learns that Snape has been gravely injured. Out of duty, he helps Snape recover - and, in doing so, falls in love in return.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling in Love is like the Spring

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for H and Mr F for checking this for past and present tenses, and spelling mistakes - any mistakes hereafter are my own. I don't own Snape and Harry, I just play with them.

The end of September...

 

“What are you hoping to gain from this experience, Mr Snape?” 

Snape's brows knit in a scowl. “Intercourse,” he replies, voice gruff. "Obviously."

“What specifically, though, from one of our Therapists? My meaning is - what could you not get from a prostitute?”

“I have no desire to get any sort of infection, Ms Lestrange,” Snape sniffs.

“If you were merely interested in sex, surely one of the,” Lestrange glances down at her notes, “eighteen first meetings that you have been on now would have sufficed?”

Snape glares at her. “What are you trying to imply?”

“If you’d wanted just sex, you could have had that by now," she says, voice clipped.

Snape snorts. “With one of those dunderheads? It would be ridiculous, and insulting.”

Lestrange looks down at her notes again, lips pursed. “Do you feel any sort of apprehension with regards to sex?”

“No,” Snape snaps.

“It would be natural if you did. You are, how old, forty-five? Do you feel that you have missed out on experiences that others have had?”

“That, surely, is why I am here,” Snape drawls. “If your esteemed service can only deign to provide me with someone that I can stand for more than five minutes.”

“So a connection is important to you.” Lestrange sighs when Snape shrugs. “I need to hear you say the words. To know that you have come to this realisation, after your eighteen dates. You did not have that realisation when you started - it was purely about ridding yourself of your 'tiresome' virginity -”

“Does my admitting that I am not just flesh and blood give me access to a more interesting class of person to meet with?” Snape demands.

Lestrange smirks. “There are individuals that I can pair you with that have a… softer approach than I believed you to be ready for. All our Therapists are different.”

Snape shrugs again. “Whatever works.”

“It is never an easy process to match someone with a sex Therapist, Mr Snape, but you have had more than the average amount of first meetings. I appreciate that it is difficult to put your trust in someone more knowledgeable in this area than yourself.”

“You think I’m avoiding committing for personal reasons. Anxiety, superiority, inability to communicate with the opposite sex - which is it?” Snape sneers.

“I don’t know,” Lestrange replies, slowly. “But that brings me on to the important point that I wanted to raise today. The... opposite sex. Do you think… that we’re moving in the right direction?”

Snape bolts clean out of his chair. “What are you trying to imply?” he snarls. “How dare you!”

Lestrange does not even bat an eyelid. “Why is that thought so provocative to you?” she asks, eyes dancing as Snape starts to pace about the room, his breaths coming in short, flustered pants. She waits, watching him like a bird of prey, and he comes to a stop by the window, staring out into the street below. 

Outside, Autumn is ending. The trees are heaving with golden leaves ready to drop: thick as fur coats.

“I…” he gulps. “When have I ever given any indication…”

“You haven’t. Ever,” she adds. “But you were unable initially to describe what sort of female you were hoping for. I think the only comment that you made was ‘nice eyes’, which leaves a lot of room for interpretation.” Snape says nothing. “Would you allow me to try you with just one young man - as a trial? Then, if you decide against it, we can go back to women again, with no questions asked.”

“You will ask questions,” Snape grumbles, his back still to her.

“I’m just trying to help you to get the most out of your experience with Lestrange's Sexual Therapy, Mr Snape. One young man, with nice eyes. Try the experience.” She pauses when he makes no move to turn, and smirks. “Free of charge.”

-

As he hastens towards the new restaurant (not the place that he has been eighteen times previously), he checks his tie, and his cufflinks - and his hair, for possibly the only time in his life - in the shop window next to the restaurant. 

His nose is red. He takes a tissue from his pocket and blows, eyes watering. He scowls at his reflection.

It is turning colder.

His hand shakes as he pushes open the door.

The light inside is low. The walls are charcoal grey, as is the carpet, but the tables are spot-lit from above and glow white like altars. 

As he stands in the doorway, glancing about, his hands sink into the pockets of his coat. The maitre-d' bustles over. 

“Snape,” he grinds out, then coughs. “Ah, no. Party of two for ‘Lestrange’. I’m a… bit late.”

“Certainly, sir - the other diner has already arrived, please come.”

Snape follows, head bowed. 

As they advance on one table, he notices the slim shoulders, the graceful neck, the dark hair. Then he shuffles around to his own seat - and is stricken, instantly, by two green eyes like whirlpools. 

The eyes blink once, and spear him to his core. “What sorcery is this?” he whispers.

“Good evening.” Full red lips curve up in a smile. The voice is soft, and the hands - so beautiful - reach across the table to cup his own. “You’re cold.” The hands settle over his. “Did you walk here? It’s freezing outside.”

“There was nowhere to park.” Horrified at his own hoarse voice, Snape recoils - but the hands still hold his own.

“Have you been at work?”

Glancing about, squirming in his chair, heart pounding, he scours the other tables for the sight of prying eyes watching them and their joined hands -

Nobody pays them any attention at all.

“Are you alright?”

Snape swallows. “Forgive me,” he chokes out. He tries to withdraw his fingers, and his face bursts into flame.

“It’s ok,” says the red mouth. “I’m Harry.”

Snape looks into green eyes. “S-Severus,” he manages. “But you… know that,” he spits, “I am sure that I was not what you were hoping for.”

He tries to rise, but Harry does too - and then other people really are looking at them. “Am I no good?” Harry whispers. He still has hold of one of Snape’s hands, his fingers caressing the knuckles. “Listen, this is all about you. If I appeal to you, then you can sit, and we can have a nice dinner. If I don’t appeal, you’re free to go. I won’t be offended. I know that you’ve not met with a man before.”

The maitre-d' hurries over. “Sir, is everything ok?”

“Yes, yes,” Snape snarls - then sneezes. He sits, leaving Harry still standing, watching him. “Please sit also,” he snaps.

Harry gives him a small smile, and complies. “Do you want to look at the menu?”

Snape stares at the list, blinking rapidly, as though it were in Chinese.

They order, and then sit in silence. Snape glances at Harry every so often, only for his gaze to almost immediately slide away, as though the sight of the young man was white-hot.

“Can you tell me about the work that you do?” Harry asks. He has such an encouraging smile -

Snape, however, always has to ruin it. “Didn’t they already tell you?” He scowls.

“You’re a doctor, wasn’t it?”

“A surgeon,” Snape says, expression sour. “Cardio-thoracic.”

“Chest,” Harry nods.

“Heart, mainly, in my case,” Snape replies, acidly.

“Do you do transplants?” Snape nods. “Wow.”

Silence again.

“Are you sure you’re ok? Is this all a bit… mortifying for you?” Harry whispers.

“What exactly are you trying to say?” Snape sneers. He sneezes again. “Fucking cold!”

Harry sits back in his chair. “Do you need to rearrange?” He glances at the door.

Snape’s eyebrows rise. “That eager to leave, are we? Have I somehow offended you already?”

“I was told you’d done this eighteen times before,” Harry says, voice soft. 

Those green eyes are fixed on him, and Snape shivers. “Yes,” he snaps. “Unsuccessfully. I might ask the same of you. How many men have you done this sort of thing for?”

“None,” Harry shrugs.

“Women, then?” Snape smirks, lips curling. 

Harry shakes his head. “I’m new. I hope I will be able to help you in some ways. I’ll certainly try, if you’re willing.”

“Tell me you have had intercourse before, though?” Snape growls.

“That’s private,” Harry whispers. “I have to tell you about any other sex surrogate partners - of which I have none - but not about my own personal relationships.”

“If you are a virgin, surely it makes our interaction rather pointless?” Snape sneers.

“Why would it?”

“You’re supposed to teach me!” Snape sighs. “It’s pointless if you can’t tell your arse from your elbow!”

“Do you always go on the defensive when you’re nervous?” Harry asks, lips quirking upwards. While Snape splutters, their bread arrives, and Snape snaps at the waiter to 'Go away!' “I wouldn’t have thought being proficient was actually what this experience was about,” Harry adds, dipping his bread in the oil.

“Forgive me,” Snape says acidly, “but you are not the one who is paying for this.”

“So you see this experience as learning how to have sex, to benefit you for future partners?”

“I would like to feel that I am not starting the race in last place,” Snape shrugs, scowling. “I do not work sociable hours - finding the time to socialise when my contemporaries are all married -”

“Are you lonely, then, when you aren’t working?”

“Why does that matter?” Snape sneers.

“Because you aren’t acting the way that a man who purely wanted a few sessions of sex would,” Harry replies. “You’ve spent - I suppose - thousands on these dates so far. Money that could have been spent elsewhere. Do you suppose that prostitutes are… unsympathetic?”

“I’m sure they would be fine,” Snape snaps. “Is this a dinner or is it a therapy session?”

“It’s a therapy session,” Harry smirks.

“With a prostitute,” Snape crows.

Harry scowls. “You think I’m a prostitute?”

“I’m paying you for sex, aren’t I?”

Harry looks down at his bread. “It’s not the same,” he mutters, pushing the plate away. “I’ll thank you not to think of it as such, if you don’t mind.”

Snape sits back in his chair, smirking. “I have offended you.”

“Yes,” Harry says. “Does that amuse you?”

Snape’s face falls. “Why do you think I have got to the age of forty-five without a partner?” he sneers.

“Because you’re not very nice?” Harry murmurs. “Why would… you say it was?”

Snape shrugs. “I cannot say.”

—

Lestrange’s eyes glitter unpleasantly as Snape sits down.

Snape seems to decide to pre-empt their discussion. “Yes. Right. Well, I am experiencing aspects of… There are things that I had not… It’s all… For the first time.” He pauses, nodding. “You understand.”

She frowns. “No, Mr Snape. What, exactly, are you experiencing?”

Snape opens his mouth with confidence. Then shuts it again.

Lestrange purses her lips, but her eyes sparkle. “Let us take this one step at a time. You met Harry.”

“Yes.”

He sits up a little straighter at the mention of Harry’s name, and she narrows her eyes. 

“You… wish to see him again?” Snape nods. Lestrange claps her hands in delight, making him start in surprise. “This is quite excellent, Mr Snape! Your first match!”

He squirms. “Yes, well. If only it hadn’t taken this long -”

“But you got there! So, what is it specifically about Harry that you like?”

“I… Ah…” Snape mutters. He looks down at his hands.

She watches him flounder for words. “Is it lust? Do you find him attractive?”

“Of course,” Snape snaps. “Is this the next level - after all those simpletons that you sent me? In desperation, you send him?”

“Why would you think that?” she smirks.

“He is stunning,” Snape scowls. “Far beyond anything I could ever… hope for.”

“You said before that you hadn’t thought about potential partners.”

“No, because people such as him were far outside my expectations!”

“Do you like anything about his personality, or is it just about the way he looks?”

“Of course,” Snape sniffs. “He annoys me, of course, as all people do. But he was kind, and he did not laugh at me, and he let me touch his hand.”

For some reason, that makes Lestrange smile; a small, sad smile. “His hand?”

“Yes,” Snape says, apparently proud of himself.

“So you are hoping to see him again?”

Snape looks, momentarily, horrified. “I had thought that was a foregone conclusion? Is it not -”

“It is entirely up to you, Mr Snape. You have never wanted to see a Therapist again.”

“Can you blame me,” mutters Snape.

“I have spoken to Harry. The next part, as you know, is his feedback. It might be of interest to you.”

Snape sits bolt upright in his chair, hands clasping the arms. “He did not… What do I do if he found me… unpleasant?”

Lestrange regards him, coolly. “Have you experienced rejection before?”

Snape buries his head in his hands. “Oh no,” he moans. “Please don’t say it.” His head snaps up. “Is this about money? What do I need to do…” He instantly fumbles his wallet from his trouser pocket, pulling out notes. “Take it; give it to him.”

“He can’t reject you - please, Mr Snape, don’t concern yourself,” says Lestrange, taking a piece of paper from her file and scanning it. Snape blinks at her dumbly, notes balled in his fist. “He said that he found you courteous to start with, and he thought that you were clearly very surprised by him, which he wasn’t sure how to take.”

“I told him several times,” Snape begins, but Lestrange shushes him.

“He didn’t particularly like the way you spoke to the waiters, and he hopes that you will relax, next time - he realised that the ‘date’ situation was alien to you. He worries about how much you work.”

“Be polite to the waiters,” mutters Snape. “Why does that matter to him?”

“Clearly it does. You might wish to give yourself a little head-start for your next date? We offer a manual of advice for achieving the best from the process, now that you have a match. Tips like that can be found in there.”

Snape’s eyes narrow. “How much is it?”

—-

After Snape leaves, Lestrange goes through to the door at the end of the corridor, opens it - and finds Harry looking sulkily up at her from the Waiting Room.

“It’s done. You’re seeing him next Friday night.”

“I told you, I’m not sure -” Harry starts.

“And I told you, Mr Potter, that if you wish to work for this company then you do not get your choice of the customers. The next date is Client’s Choice. I will tell you where to meet him.”

—

The following Friday night sees Harry sitting waiting for Snape, again, in a restaurant where all the waiters sneer at him.

Snape is late, again, and comes in looking harassed. He tosses a red book onto the table before sitting. 

Harry blinks at it in confusion. “What’s this?” he asks.

“The manual,” Snape sneers. “All fifty pounds of it.” Harry looks up at him. “Nothing to say?”

“Was it not worth fifty pounds then?” Harry ventures.

“That depends on how useful you find the advice ‘Dress up for your date, perhaps invest in a cologne’,” Snape exclaims. “Who are these people that you normally service? It’s no surprise they can’t get laid if they don’t wash!”

Harry makes no comment about the fact that Snape appears to have washed his hair since last time. Snape is also unnaturally polite to the waiters, and the third time he says, “How gracious you are to us,’ Harry resists the urge to roll his eyes.

“What are you drinking?” Snape asks, eyeing Harry’s tap water. “You’ll share a bottle of red with me? May I see the wine list?”

“Not for me, thanks,” Harry tries to say, but Snape snorts and ignores him - and orders the most expensive bottle of red on the list, with the caveat that he wishes to taste it first. Harry sits in silence whilst Snape takes a sip of the wine, makes a face, then pronounces it satisfactory. The waiter pours out two glasses. 

Harry seethes, and clings to his tap water.

“I have excellent earning potential in the future,” Snape barks, swirling his wine in its glass, “and my current salary is well in excess of two hundred thousand a year. I’d be a catch for someone,” he adds, glancing speculatively at Harry. “I have income from my private practice, and my journal articles and publications. I have property in Notting Hill, where I live, and in Cumbria. You may visit my house there, later in this process, should you wish. Perhaps we can go for a run up there in the Porsche.”

Harry realises, with a sudden sadness, that Snape must believe all these details to be impressive to a potential partner. 

He feels as if he is conducting a job interview. 

He realises that Snape is talking more about his car - Harry misses the model of Porsche, but he catches the price (Snape mentions it periodically). 

He also learns that Snape has had someone in to decorate his London house, but that he feels quite detached from the process - there’s a lot of glass everywhere, apparently. When Harry asks whether Snape has a nice view of anything from all his windows, he is shot down. 

Apparently, Snape works so much that he is never there in daylight to see it.

He paints a picture of his professional life as such a success, that Harry would have looked at the life of this man and ticked off every achievement - job, house, car, professional recognition - had he not been sitting with a sex therapist. 

He wishes that he could understand half of the things that Snape is saying; Snape explains at length about an experimental heart valve treatment that he is pioneering. 

The unfortunate truth appears to be that Snape is unused to speaking to anyone other than his colleagues - he speaks in terms and phrases that other surgeons would understand, but not Harry. 

If Snape were a man of sympathy, or even with a love of teaching, he could have made Harry understand - Harry isn’t slow. A kinder man could have taken care to explain, could have drawn a diagram of a heart for Harry on the back of a napkin; could have brought it all to life, and Harry would have been amazed and impressed.

Snape does not. 

When Harry tries to ask questions, Snape gets frustrated, and tells him not to concern himself, and sinks into irate silence.

“We should order,” he snaps, sullen.

Harry, who has been perusing the menu in confusion, nods.

“May I please,” Snape says, unnaturally polite again, as the waiter jots down their order, “have the fillet steak, rare. And my companion will have the…?”

“Sourdough pizza please, with a tomato base, olives, rocket - and, please, no cheese.” 

Harry sips his water and waits.

“Pizza,” Snape says in disgust, after the waiter has left them. “With no cheese.” He leans across the table and hisses: “I brought you to the best steakhouse in the City!”

“I’m vegan,” Harry says flatly. “If you’d have asked before choosing a restaurant, I could have told you. And I don’t drink,” he adds, nodding at the still-full glass of red wine.

Snape sits there, looking like he has been slapped. 

Harry wishes suddenly that he did drink - an entire bottle of that expensive red wine is looking very appealing about now. 

Then Harry makes another error. “So you’ve, er, been very successful. Were either of your parents surgeons?”

Snape’s face goes deathly white, then red. His lips thin; his eyes bulge in his head. “Definitely not,” he hisses, bloodlessly. “My father was a miner, and an unspeakable drunk. Everything I have, I have worked for, and earned by myself!”

“I never tried to imply anything different,” Harry remonstrates. “It was just a question. I’m sorry. I just wondered where your love of the subject came from.”

Snape looks at him incredulously. “Love?” he sneers.

“Or perhaps it’s not love,” Harry grumbles. “You don’t have to love what you do all day.”

“Who does?” Snape snorts.

“I’m… I’d say I’m pretty happy with my day job. Jobs,” Harry corrects himself.

Snape nods, then pauses. He is looking at the closed manual. He seems to be having the realisation that - “You have not spoken much about yourself, yet.”

Harry shrugs. “Not much to tell.”

Snape glances at the manual again, and Harry has a vision of Snape reading it and committing the advice of ‘Pretend to be interested in your date’s career’ to memory. 

“What are these,” Snape swallows, “jobs that you do? More of the same?” He waves a hand between them.

“Oh, no! This is just… this is new,” Harry mumbles. “This is only one evening a week anyway. I have a little yoga studio that I run with my… er… a friend,” he finishes weakly.

“Your ‘er’. What is that?” Snape demands.

Harry sighs. “My ex. But she really is my ex; it’s not an ongoing thing. It only works because we were broken up when we started renting the studio. We’re just friends now.”

Snape stiffens. “Right,” he snaps. “So you teach yoga.” He sneers the word. “What else?”

“I work at an owl sanctuary two days a week. And I do gardening with my other friend - I help him with his business. He’s actually my, um, my ex’s brother.”

“I see,” says Snape. “And this… flitting between jobs, this appeals to you, does it?”

“I’m not ‘between jobs’,” Harry snaps. “I have all three, and on Sundays I coach a little under-twelves football team, but that’s not a job. They’re really keen, bless them.”

“Under twelve.” Snape sounds incredulous again, as though he has never encountered somebody under the age of twelve in his whole life.

Harry takes a longing look at the wine. “Yes. What do you do in your spare time?” Harry asks. He pushes his full wine glass across the table towards Snape, who has already finished two glasses. 

Snape accepts it with a nod. Then a frown. “I do nothing that someone like you would class as a hobby,” he snaps.

“Someone like me?” Harry asks.

“Yes. Someone who does yoga and gardening. I suppose that you don’t eat the animals because you like them?” Snape sneers.

“Yes, that’s about it,” Harry smiles. 

Snape snorts, and proceeds with malicious delight to tell Harry all about the use of pig’s valves during open heart surgery - and, when Harry refuses to respond, announces that he’s going outside for a smoke.

-

“We have waited eighteen weeks for Mr Snape to find a match. You knew when you signed your contract that you cannot turn clients down!”

“He’s… he’s just so…”

“Not the friendliest of characters, I know,” Lestrange snorts. “But he is your assigned case, nevertheless. Unless you would rather work elsewhere?” 

Harry sighs. “Can I say that I made an error agreeing to work with men? I’ve only had one short relationship in real life, with my ex, Ginny. I’m not sure that a man -”

“Mr Snape is quite taken with you, Mr Potter. You have signed a contact. You will start having sex with him on date five - it gives you two more platonic dates to get used to him, and he to you. I’ll draw up your therapy schedule. The next date is your choice - he will meet you here at six o’clock next Friday, and you may choose the location.”

Harry scrubs his palms across his face, shoulders bowed.

-

“Hermione. Thanks for meeting with me about this. It’s really good of you.”

“Oh, Harry, I sort of feel responsible. After all, it was me that suggested to Ron that you try working for Lestrange’s. And I’ve met horrid old Snape - I’m so sorry you’ve been stuck with him. Are you going to leave?”

“You had trouble on your date with him?” Harry asks.

Hermione instantly opens her mouth, as though ready for a fight - then, she pauses. Sighs. “He is without question the most isolated man I have ever met.”

Harry blinks. “That’s very… patient of you. Did he wind you up a lot?”

Hermione nods. “He was so rude - really quite nasty at times, and of course I then got angry in return. It was a shame, really - he is so intelligent, and he’s this amazing world-class expert - in my chosen field. I was one of the first dates he had, because I also work in his hospital, even though I’m only a nurse. I was really disappointed when he was so horrible.”

Harry nods. Hermione looks at him piercingly.

“But then I realised that this was why he needs an agency like this - because he has no idea how to speak to people in a manner which makes them attracted to him. It must be a self-perpetuating cycle for him - the more isolated he is, the more angry he gets, and he sees people around him all the time having normal human relationships, but nobody ever wants to do that with him.”

“It’s his own fault,” Harry grumbles.

“It is,” Hermione nods, “and God knows it wasn’t going to be me that was the one to help him - he’d have driven me insane! But he must really like you, if you’ve had two dates now.”

“It didn’t seem like he liked me at all,” Harry shrugs. “This whole process is so odd, I hadn’t realised. I’d thought that it’d be like dating - where you find things in common - but I have nothing in common with him! He smokes like a chimney, and the amount of wine he drank on Friday night would have floored even Ron!”

“I think, at its best, sex therapy can be like dating,” Hermione nods. “But Snape will probably take a lot of work.”

“I just… I can’t be the sort of educated, high-achieving date that he wants.” Harry shakes his head. “When he was going on and on about his salary -”

“Maybe that’s what he thinks he wants,” Hermione smiles, “but he’s chosen you twice now. I think that isn’t what he needs at all. Maybe it’s someone different from him - someone to show him the things in life that he’s been missing.”

“When I told him about the gardening, and the owl sanctuary - and the kids’ football league - you should have seen his face! He has this amazing house that he’s bought but he couldn’t even tell me whether there was a view from his windows because he only goes to work and comes home in the dark!”

“Poor man, he must hardly see the sun,” Hermione sighs. “Then you know what you have to do for your choice of date, don’t you?”

—

The following Friday at six, Harry is sat on the steps of Lestrange’s, a canvas bag by his side, when the gleaming black Porsche pulls up. One window slides down.

“Where are we going?” Snape says from behind the wheel, by way of greeting.

“Fancy a drive?” Harry asks, with a small smile. “The car’s alright, isn’t it.”

Snape’s eyes narrow. “I ask again. To where are we headed?”

“About forty-five minutes away. I’ll direct you. It’s a surprise.”

Snape looks thoroughly suspicious now. “You won’t tell me where we’re going,” he snaps.

“Nope,” Harry grins. “Sure you’re alright to drive? We can go in my car -” he motions to the clapped-out Ford parked on the other side of the street, and Snape’s face pales.

They drive (in the Porsche) in silence, with Harry occasionally giving Snape directions. When it becomes clear that they are going out of town, Snape’s expression sours still further. 

He tries to light up a cigarette whilst driving, but Harry asks him not to. 

The glare that he gives Harry could have melted wax, and he throws the unlit cigarette out of the car window.

The sky is just starting to turn orange as Harry directs him to turn off the motorway and into the forest. The sign reads ‘Deane Lake’.

-

When they get out of the car, Snape fumbles for another cigarette. With his back to Harry, he lights up and strides several paces away, breathing deeply. Harry waits.

They are parked by the edge of a beautifully quiet lake. 

At occasional points around its shoreline, small groups of families and couples are sitting with little fires, laughing and swimming. None are close enough to be audible. As Harry starts gathering sticks for a fire, Snape watches him, frozen. A smoking statue.

“You’ll have to help, if you want dinner,” Harry grins. 

Snape bristles, and does not move.

Harry gets a little fire going, then draws from his bag two jacket potatoes wrapped in foil. A variety of Tupperware boxes come out next, and a blanket to go on the grass. A bag of vegan marshmallows. “We’ll need to rig up some way of boiling water, if you want tea,” Harry says. “Oh, look! It’s setting!”

He sits as the sun starts her descent over the lake, bathing the still water in an orange and pink light. The fire crackles. 

“Lovely, isn’t it?” he says.

For a few moments, there is no answer.

Then Snape comes and sits down beside him, tossing his cigarette butt into the fire, his long legs bending awkwardly. He watches the start of the sunset cast fiery ripples across the water, mute. Then: “It is.”

Harry starts unwrapping some vegetable skewers. “No meat in this dinner, I’m afraid.”

Snape eyes the parcels with suspicion - then blinks when Harry hands him a skewer, and tells him to hold it over the flames.

“So,” Harry murmurs, “was there a specific moment when you decided to do… something like this? With Lestrange’s?”

Snape’s mouth opens. He is watching his skewer smoulder. For a while, he remains silent, and Harry thinks that he is not going to answer. 

“Not one moment, no,” Snape says slowly. “More a… string of moments. One specific one, perhaps, but it was not directly connected to… dating.”

“Go on,” says Harry softly.

“I… lost a friend. A colleague. He was my mentor. I had seen him, only two days before his death - we used to take our research papers and debate them over a bottle of wine. That was… one of the interactions that I always looked forward to.”

“Not in a romantic sense?” Harry asks.

“Not at all - he was divorced. We were just… equals. And I had seen him two days before he did it, and he had said nothing of the fact that, in two days time, he would be dead. No indication at all, and I felt partly responsible.”

“How could you be?”

“I wasn’t, but I went to visit his ex wife a week after it happened, and apologised to her - and she said, ‘Oh, Severus, you weren’t to know. You were only his colleague, he wouldn't have told you.’ But I had considered him my friend, and then two days later he threw himself from the top of the hospital multi-storey carpark. And it made me realise that maybe the interactions that I had been having were not as meaningful to other people as they were to me. I am unkind to my trainees, I have no mercy with my colleagues, and my friends are not my friends -”

“Maybe it was meaningful. You might have been one of his lasts attempts to keep his life normal, in the face of distressing emotions -”

“But it was her insistence that I would never have known! And I could not understand that - why not me, for God’s sake? What about me would have missed it?”

“The fault might not have been with you at all,” Harry whispers.

“And then I realised that she might have been right - because he and I never talked about anything other than work.”

“You have been very work-orientated, on the last two dates,” Harry ventures. Snape glares at him, but he presses on. “Would you say that your career has been your main life goal, up to this point?”

“Is it suddenly not?” Snape snaps.

“Well, I mean… You’re here. Clearly your life was missing… something.” Snape sighs. “I only ask because I might be the one to… provide it.” Snape says nothing. Harry turns back to the fire.

“I thought that there would be a lot less talking, and a lot more fucking,” Snape scowls, muttering half to himself.

One corner of Harry’s lips quirk up. “I’m not expected to have sex with you until date five. But if sex was all you were wanting -”

“I could have gone to a prostitute, yes, it’s been said before,” Snape snapped. “This a very surreal form of therapy - is this good enough to eat yet?”

“Probably; its nice even when it’s raw,” Harry says, inspecting the charred vegetables. Snape starts to pick at them with his thin fingers, and Harry can’t help wondering how many lives those hands have saved. “I’m supposed to help you understand what is holding you back from real relationships.”

“What is it, then?” Snape growls.

Harry shrugs. “Don’t know, yet.”

“You have had some training, I presume, in order to decide?” Snape sneers.

“Yes, but I’m new,” Harry says. “Some of the guys here have been around for years, and seen a lot of clients. You’re my first one. Some of the others see different clients every night of the week, too.”

“Are you doing that?” Snape demands, turning his head to glare suspiciously at Harry.

“No,” Harry admits. “It’s just you.”

Snape nods sharply. “Good.”

“Why is that good?” Snape opens his mouth. Then thinks better of whatever he has been about to say. “Go on,” Harry probes.

Snape shakes his head. They eat in silence. The sun hangs very low in the sky now: just above the treeline, like a ripe fruit, scattering rubies across the lake as it dies.

“What was different about me, that you wanted to keep dating?” Harry suddenly blurts out.

Snape turns to look at him again, mouth open. They have a moment of passing uncomfortable stares back and forth, before Snape turns away. Harry shoves the foil-wrapped potatoes into the embers at the edge of the fire.

-

“Vegan marshmallow?” Harry asked, offering the bag. “You need to find a stick to cook it on.”

“What, from the ground?” Snape sneers.

“I forgot, you work in a hospital, where everything is sterilised within an inch of its life, yet people still get MRSA,” Harry grins. “A bit of dirt out here won’t kill you.”

“It might,” Snape grumbles.

“Did you never do anything like this, as a child?” Harry asks.

Snape suddenly goes very still. “Yes,” he whispers. “With… my mother. Before her illness took hold, we used to get on the train, go up to Lake Windermere from her house in Cokeworth.” He chuckles - an unusual sound, with more than a hint of a northern twang. “I’d… forgotten.”

Surprised (Snape’s usual voice is cuttingly southern and precise), Harry gives him a shy smile. “Your… mum’s dead, I s’pose?” Harry whispers. Snape nods. “I’m sorry. Mine too. And my dad.”

Snape looks sharply at him. “You’re awfully young to have lost your parents -” Then some realisation seems to hit him. “How old are you, exactly?”

“How old are you?”

“Forty-five,” Snape sniffs. “Answer the question.”

“Twenty-five,” Harry says. “Is that a problem?” Snape sighs. “Isn’t it considered good to have an energetic younger lover?”

“Not if you can’t keep up from the start,” Snape snorts, expression dark.

“You don’t know if you can’t, yet,” Harry says. “You haven’t even kissed me.”

As soon as the words are out, he realises what he has just said. Horror creeps over him - even more so because Snape turns his head and fixes Harry with a hot stare.

“Do you wish me to?” Snape demands.

Harry splutters. “It’s at your own pace,” he backtracks, but Snape has already shifted closer to him.

“I have never kissed anyone before,” Snape murmurs, wetting his lips with his tongue. “I would prefer it if you kissed me, so that I might work out what I’m doing.”

“You’d like me to kiss you?” Harry chokes. Snape nods, and his eyes glitter in the darkness. “I, ah, I’d prefer then if you… You’ve been smoking.”

“You refuse to kiss me because I smoke? Let’s examine this,” Snape snarls. “How many people have you kissed with a smoking habit that you are -”

“Forget it,” Harry says. “I just don’t like the smell.”

“I don’t like being turned down,” Snape sneers, “and I’m paying.”

‘It’s only one night a week,’ Harry thinks, and lifts his mouth to Snape’s.

Snape kisses like… 

Well.

If Harry is honest, it is a little bit like an assault.

Snape seems to have divined that the idea of kissing is to attempt to climb inside Harry via his mouth. His tongue goes almost all the way in, and Harry steps back, spluttering.

Snape frowns. “That isn’t the reaction they have in the films.”

“No,” snorts Harry. He edges closer. “Just… keep your mouth a bit more closed - and don’t dig your fingernails into my scalp, ok?”

-

On the way back, in the car, Snape’s hand shifts more than once from the gear stick to cover Harry’s own. Just for a few seconds, before retreating.

-

“Thank you for tonight,” Snape murmurs, as Harry gets out of the car and walks around to the steps. 

Snape lowers the window on the driver’s side to speak to him. He has looked half starstruck ever since their single kiss. “It has been…” he trails off, frowning at himself.

Harry helps him. “You had a nice time?”

Snape nods. “I did.” He gives Harry a sideways glance. “Might I… kiss you again?”

Harry swallows. “Okay.”

Snape gets urgently out of the car, engine still running. He steps up to Harry with an intensity that almost makes Harry step back. It is clear that Snape still has no idea what he is doing, from the way he seizes Harry’s head in both hands.

Harry watches Snape drive away. His mouth feels strange.

-

On Sunday afternoon, he is summoned to the office.

Bellatrix comes to the door to meet him. “I have something for you, that could not wait,” she crows. “From Mr Snape.”

Harry gasps. “He’s called it off.”

“Far from it,” she sniggers, producing a letter from her pocket and handing it to him. “Read.”

Gingerly, Harry takes the envelope. “Where did you get this?”

“He left it for you - put it through the door this morning. I opened it. Look at what you’re doing to him, the poor man.”

Harry eyes the letter doubtfully. “I’m not sure I want to know.”

Smirking, she closes the door. Harry sinks down onto the front steps, squares his shoulders, and opens the envelope.

He squints at Snape’s handwriting, which looks like the path of a drunk spider - and what he reads changes something fundamental inside him.

His heart twists at some of the phrases (‘I have never felt, nor made, this confession to another person, nor felt love in return, either emotional or physical. Before, that did not signify, but tonight, it gnaws at me terribly’), and he squirms at others (‘please be only flattered that you have inspired someone as cold as myself to burn with such passion’).

Towards the end of the letter, his eyes widen in shock. (‘I leave my meagre offering at your feet. You are my heart. I am yours, until my last breath. Regards, Severus Snape.’)

Harry sets down the letter - pushes it away from him on the step. His eyes refuse to focus on the words. Creeping horror seems to have fogged up his brain. 

For a long while, he stares at the page, willing it to blow away and flutter off down the street.

-

Hermione puts the letter down.

“I don’t believe it,” she says. “That man wrote this?”

“He really did,” Harry sighs. “You had a date with him, Hermione - what do you make of it?”

“I can’t believe that you inspired him to write something like this after three dates!” Hermione cries. Then she sobers. “No offence, Harry. You’re attractive, it’s not about you. It’s just… He is probably the most closed-off man that I… I spent our date terrified in case he liked me enough to continue.”

“I did too,” Harry groans. “But isn’t that sad? The poor man has come for therapy and even the therapists think he’s too cold for sex!”

“He’s not cold, not at all,” Hermione flaps the letter at him. “If he can write this, it shows real passion - a real depth of feeling. There’s a heart beating in there after all.”

“He practically says that he’s fallen in love with me - after three dates!” Harry moans. “It’s too fast!”

“Not for him - he probably hasn’t felt anything like this before. Your last date was clearly this… seminal experience for him. He’s quite intense, isn’t he - focussed - it makes sense that he would love in that same intense way.”

“He can’t love me, he hardly knows me! And so much, so fast - he’ll… He’ll get hurt,” Harry whispers. “I know this will hurt him.”

“Harry,” Hermione says gently, “falling in love with the therapist is a natural progression along the way. He was told that when he signed up - twenty dates, no more, and after the last one, all contact ceases. People are warned that any emotions they risk during the process are -”

“He’s just… I’m not sure how I can provide him with what he wants, now. Now that he wants this… wild, passionate relationship -”

“You get used to being with people who you wouldn’t choose for yourself. Plus, if your clients are holding back from feeling emotions towards you, then they aren’t engaging with the process. He needs to feel this. You’ll find a way to help him feel this.”

“And then break his heart after the twentieth meeting when I never see him again,” Harry groans.

“You’re worried about breaking his heart?”

“Of course I am, he’s offered it to me on a plate!” Harry cries. “I never expected him to open up so much! I can’t equate someone as harsh as Snape with,” Harry snatches the letter back, “this. He says here that he’s never…” Harry’s face flushes red, “been with anyone.”

“Isn’t that sad,” says Hermione. “Poor Snape. Horrid git,” she adds.

Harry laughs. “He was so horrible! Oh, God - I feel awful laughing about it, when he’s out there, probably stuck in an operating theatre all night, without an answer to his letter!”

“What answer would you give him?” Hermione asks, looking at Harry piercingly. “Because he will demand an answer!”

Harry buries his head in his hands.

-

He spends the next week in a constant state of agitation. During the day, he teaches yoga in their tiny studio. Despite Snape not knowing where he works, or lives during the daytime, every soul that walks through the doors is potentially Snape, come back to make his confession of love in person. Every footfall outside on the street at night is Snape, waiting until all but Harry are asleep to come inside and… what? 

He is looking forward to Friday night with anticipation that borders on terror.

It is on Friday afternoon, however, that he receives a phone call.

“Harry, it’s Bellatrix. What are you doing?”

“Just finished a class,” Harry says. “Why?”

“You won’t be meeting with Mr Snape tonight. I’ve just found out.”

Harry’s heart shudders to a halt. “Oh. Why not? Has he changed his mind?”

“He’s been in a road accident. I don’t know if he was in a vehicle, or whether he was walking and a vehicle hit him. I rung him to confirm your date tomorrow, and his housekeeper told me that he’s been in hospital since Sunday. He’s in a bad way. She thinks he’ll lose a leg.”

“Sunday?” Harry repeats, weakly. “The day he dropped off my letter?”

“Maybe he got hit going home, I don’t know. We were just starting to get somewhere with him! So you can stand down from that one - I’ll send you on some more first dates, find you someone to replace him.”

“What about Snape?” Harry asks, numb.

“It’ll be a long time before he’s in the mood for sex, from the sounds of it,” says Bellatrix, sourly.

Harry blinks. “Did you find out which hospital he’s in?”

“The one he works in; Royal Free. But he’s not in a state for visitors. I wouldn’t go. You will not - I’m telling you.”

“No, right, sure. Definitely not. I’ll wait to hear from you then, bye,” Harry blurts out - and hesitates for less than a second before he is running blindly for his coat.

-

Snape awakes, then wishes that he had not.

He cannot move, and his only consciousness is a black despair.

-

The figure in the bed does not, at first, appear to take the shape of a man. 

Harry presses his tired face up to the glass, peering through at the mass of bandages and tubes that the sign on the door states is ‘Severus Snape’.

“Can I help you?” A nurse is standing beside him.

“I’m…” Harry trails off, at a loss. He glances in at Snape again, unsure as to why he is so shaken. It was as though Snape’s confession of love has… bound them, somehow. It makes no sense. Harry wonders whether he should leave.

The nurse is regarding him very strangely. “Forgive me for asking, but you’re not called Harry, are you?” she asks, voice tremulous.

Surprised, Harry nods. “Why?”

“Oh my God! His only words are concerning you! But, of course, we had no idea how to find you.”

Harry’s lingering doubts (hopes?) that the letter he had received is a hoax evaporate instantly. “I’m here,” he says, cautiously. “Can… can you tell me what his injuries are?”

The nurse silently takes his hand, glancing in at the supine figure lying motionless in the bed. “They’ve amputated his left leg above the knee this morning; that you can tell,” she says, sadly. 

Harry, who had not realised, lets out a gasp of horror, and the nurse breaks off. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I never worked with him,” she adds, in a low whisper, “but he’s a legend in this hospital. Has a fierce reputation too, mind you. But still… It’ll be a huge blow to him.”

Harry gulps. “G-go on.”

The nurse sighs. “His right leg is broken, but they’re hoping to save it. His left arm has nails in it now to hold it together, and there’s lots of breaks in his hands - but he can feel his right toes, so they’re thinking he might not be paralysed. They’re very worried about his left eye. His right eye has an infection, which is why they’re both bandaged. He also had a nasty wound to his neck; the artery was eighty percent severed. There’ll be a big scar. He has internal injuries: broken ribs, and a collapsed lung, but that has improved. He’s able to talk very softly, and he’s unconscious for most of the time due to his medication.”

Harry falters, staring at the still figure. “A horrible list of injuries,” he says, grimly. “Do you know what… actually happened?”

“My understanding is that he was crossing the road and a lorry came around the corner too fast. Are you alright?” 

Harry leans over - and vomits into the bin. 

The nurse rubs his back grimly as he groans and splutters. “He’s been so lucky,” she says. “He was right outside the hospital when it happened. If you’re going to be hit…”

Harry nods, wiping his mouth. “God,” he gasps out.

“It’s going to be a long road to his recovery, and his life will be completely changed. The mere fact that you’re here, though, might be what he needs. He sees it that he has nothing left. But that’s not true, is it? Believe it or not, we’ve had many in with worse,” says the nurse, as though sensing Harry’s uncertainty. “It has just been about keeping him alive, at this point. He was lucky.”

“I’m sure,” Harry says, unhappily. He stands in the doorway, as though about to face his own execution. Then he sighs, and looks back down the corridor to the exit. “What has he… said about me?”

The nurse’s face lights up. “About how beautiful you are, and that you’re his angel, and his light, and about how much he lo -”

Harry nods, his mouth downturned and jaw set. “Ok. I know what I have to do, then. Thank you,” he adds, as he pushes open the door.

-

For long moments, Snape does not move. 

Harry, realising that he has no way of knowing whether or not Snape is asleep, cautiously moves closer. He draws the bedside chair up a little closer, as carefully and quietly as he can. At the sound, however, Snape shifts in the bed.

“Who is there?” comes a hoarse demand.

Harry does not reply. 

For what feels like an eternity, he gazes down at Snape, feeling a strange power in that moment. Snape does not know he is here. The choice is still Harry’s to make. 

He can make his presence known to Snape, or he can leave. He has no obligation here. 

But something gnaws at him - how someone like Snape can harbour such deep, tender feelings?

His own feelings towards Snape are simply… Unfathomable.

But then Snape shifts again in the bed, with an agonised slowness, and there are tubes, it seems, coming out of him in all directions, and the corners of his mouth are turned down and he seems so very, very unhappy - “Who is it? Please, please leave,” comes the growling voice.

“I’m here,” Harry tries to say, but his voice won’t come out of his throat. It makes a husky, garbled sound, like a whine.

Snape winces, trying to turn his head to "see" with his bandaged eyes - and Harry’s heart lurches. Whether it is pity, or kindness, or _what it was_ that makes him reach out and take Snape’s hand - bandaged and unrecognisable as a hand - in his own, he will not be able to decide, later. 

What does shock him, however, is Snape’s reaction to his voice. “It’s me, it’s Harry,” he manages to say, softly. “It’s Harry.”

Snape’s whole body contorts as though he had been shot, or is suddenly wracked with a spasm of unbearable pain. His mouth falls open - and a mournful, heartfelt cry is wrenched from his lips, even as both his bandaged hands (like paws, they were so well wrapped) lurch up to seize at Harry.

“Harry?” he moans, then cries out in pain at his own sudden movement. 

Harry, distressed and horrified, leaps off the chair and hurriedly reaches out towards the only human flesh that he can see, the skin of Snape’s right cheek. Snape moans again, then leans into his touch with his mouth open, turning his head to kiss Harry’s smooth palm with his parched lips. Harry gently strokes Snape’s cheek with his fingers. He has ended up half on the floor and half leaning on the bed, but Snape doesn’t seem to care.

“Ssssh,” Harry whispers, mortified. “It’s only me.”

For a moment, he thinks the shudders that tremble Snape’s body are him shivering, or in pain - but then, he realises that Snape is _crying_.

His heart swells again. “Oh, oh no please don’t cry,” he chokes, gently soothing and petting at any skin he can reach; the fingers of his other hand end up tangled in Snape’s hair. “Your eye is i-infected, it might get worse!”

Snape, however, doesn’t seem to be able to stop. He is smoothing his one non-broken arm with its bandaged paw up and down the side of Harry’s head; his lips keep mouthing Harry’s name silently, in between tears; his nose has started running. 

Harry, anxious that the dressing over Snape’s right eye is now soaked, starts to draw back to look for a tissue - but Snape clings to him as best he can. “Sssh, come on, lie back,” Harry says. “I’m just getting a tissue for you, I’m not going anywhere.”

He has to hold the tissue (which he finds in one of the drawers) up to Snape’s face, as Snape has no fingers free. Snape sniffs wetly, then allows Harry to dry off his face.

Breathing heavily, he seems to try to compose himself, even as his dignity lies around him in tatters. Harry stands there, holding a sodden tissue, and trembling. After a few moments, he reaches closer - threading his fingers into Snape’s hair and stroking. 

Long minutes of sniffling and panting pass, before Snape’s breathing evens out, and Harry realises that he is asleep.

He draws back, heart pounding. 

What has he got himself into? Still, he is resolved. There is no backing out now.

-

Harry is dozing fitfully in the chair beside Snape’s bed, when the nurse comes in to offer him a sandwich.

Snape is awake in seconds. “Harry?” he calls out, blindly groping with his bandaged hands, turning his maimed head.

Harry, aching, unfolds himself from the chair. “That’s really kind,” he says to the nurse. “Just… Just a black coffee. Thank you.”

At the sound of his voice, Snape strains toward him, like a flower reaching towards the sunlight. 

Harry gets up and approaches the bed. “Do you want anything to - can he eat? You can’t eat, can you,” Harry says, tiredly. “They said you’d had a lot of surgery.” He gives Snape’s hair another stroke.

Snape, clearly unused to any sort of caress, leans into Harry’s hand, with a blissful sort of sigh that makes Harry’s insides twist.

“Not at the moment, no.” The nurse looks tired too. “What they had to repair was extensive, and he has a stoma just for the moment. We are feeding him via a tube to his stomach, which you can’t see,” she nods towards the blankets. “But they should be able to patch him up and remove the stoma eventually.”

“You’ve really been through it,” Harry sighs, gently stroking Snape’s hair. 

Snape says nothing. When Harry tries to withdraw his fingers, however -

“Don’t stop,” Snape whispers, roughly, before adding: “Please.”

The nurse leaves in search of coffee. Harry wonders what time it is.

“You got my letter?” Snape’s voice is still deep, but it grates now, coarse and painful.

Harry nods, then realises that Snape cannot see. “I did.”

“What did you… think of it?”

Snape seems to hold his breath.

Harry fidgets. “I… I was… surprised.”

Snape nods unhappily. “I’m sure.” 

“It’s not been… long,” Harry adds.

“No. And yet… you have come to me.”

“Yes,” Harry ventures.

“Am I, then, to have hope?” Snape asks - turning his head to Harry as though to fix him with that piercing black gaze.

“Hope?” Harry chokes out.

“That my feelings may one day be returned?” Snape says, sternly.

Harry’s mouth falls open. “I… You really think that you’ve already fallen in love with me?” he asks, stalling for time.

“I said as much. Of course, I did not expect it to be reciprocated, yet,” Snape scoffs, but something in his tone hints that he had hoped that. He must have hoped for it. “But you would not have come had you found the idea completely distasteful. Either that, or you came out of pity. I don’t want your pity,” he adds, sneeringly.

“I didn’t come to pity you, or laugh at you,” Harry snaps. “I came because I heard you had been injured.”

“That is pity, then.” Snape starts to turn away.

“I don’t know what it is. I had to come,” Harry says, simply. “I had no choice.”

“Because I told you that I loved you? That, somehow, makes me your responsibility?”

“You’ve saved many lives in your career,” Harry says. “Are you not owed -”

“A reward?” Snape hisses. “What reward is it, to have someone stay by my side out of pity and duty?”

“It’s not,” Harry says. “I don’t know what this is, but I can’t leave you on your own, knowing that you care for me. I just can’t. Letting me be here is a much more likely way of making me fall in love with you than throwing me out would be,” he adds.

“How are you ever going to fall in love with me?” Snape hisses. “What chance have I got to woo you like this? If I were what I once was, I could do everything in my power to show you that I was a man worthy of your love. How can I do it blind, and crippled? I have no power to make you fall in love with me, like this!” and he turns his face away, looking so crushed that Harry settles himself on the edge of Snape’s bed, his hand settling over Snape’s heart.

“You are not your wounds,” he whispers. “I’m here. In my own time, not as a therapist. Just me.”

“I am at your mercy,” Snape mutters miserably.

“You told me that you had none, yourself,” Harry says, smiling softly.

“I’ve not,” Snape says. “How can you be so self-sacrificing? What if every patient in here wrote you a love letter?”

“But they didn’t,” Harry smiles. “The only love letter I’ve ever had has come from you.”

-

Harry already knows that the strange nature of their previous interactions will pose a problem. He hasn’t, however, been expecting it to cause him difficulties quite so quickly.

The following morning, one of the orderlies, pushing a trolley past their door to collect the ward’s empty breakfast trays, pokes his head into Snape’s room. “Old Snape! Good to hear you’re alive, sir! He your boyfriend, then?”

At Snape’s harshly indrawn breath, Harry tenses. 

Then he realises that Snape is waiting for him to answer. 

Harry squirms, blushing, and twists himself awkwardly in his chair. “Oh, no! We, ah, um… Well we’re…” he waves a hand between them, “we’re just um, friends,” he finishes, with an unhappy smile. 

He risks a glance at Snape. From what Harry can see of his expression, it looks pretty thunderous. 

Knowing he has said the wrong thing, Harry turns to look silently out of the window (wishing himself a thousand miles away in that moment) as the orderly takes in the awkward scene, and scuttles away.

There follows a tense silence, during which he can almost hear Snape bristling with anger. 

“I need to smoke,” Snape announces.

Harry is afraid to turn around. “I’m sorry,” he says, to the window. “I was… It’s all new. It’s new. I probably said the wrong thing -”

“You said no pretty fucking quickly,” Snape snaps.

Harry turns. “You didn’t exactly leap to my aid! What would you have said? ‘He’s my sex therapist’?”

“You are more than that, to me,” Snape grinds out. “It isn’t just about sex, you were right.”

“I think it’s a little early to start categorising everything,” Harry cries. “Especially as we can’t have dates, or be any sort of lovers at the moment!”

Snape bares his teeth, but says nothing. Harry sulkily watches him paw at the sheets, and thumps the arm of his own chair in frustration. He sits down - then jumps straight up again. “I’m going for a walk,” he snaps.

“An excellent idea, run away,” growls Snape. “At least one of us can.”

Harry wants to shout at Snape, but he doesn’t.

Then Snape sighs. “I should have told him to mind his own fucking business. I was only… intrigued to find out what answer you would give. It’s not your fault that it isn’t the answer I… wanted to hear.”

Harry, anger deflating like a balloon, approaches the bed again, cautious. He gives Snape a tired smile that Snape cannot see, before sitting carefully on the edge of the bed.

“Why do you stay?” Snape murmurs, very low. He looks sightlessly down at his bandaged hands. “What am I offering you, like this?” Harry lays a hand over Snape’s bandaged paw. “Such concern for someone you barely know,” Snape mutters. “When does it become feasible… for me to ask to be allowed to kiss you?”

Taken aback, Harry blinks. “Umm…” he murmurs. “I… Can I…” he swallowed. “Sorry, I’m just… surprised.”

“Surprised,” Snape says, bluntly.

“Yeah, I mean… You don’t come across as the type to…”

“To what?” Snape demands. “To be allowed to be the recipient of affection? I kissed you, before.”

“You said in that letter that you had never… you know… with anyone.” 

Harry squirms a little, but Snape merely shrugs. “So? I am hardly ashamed. I had never found anyone with whom I wished to be intimate. Now I have,” he adds. “But I realise that those kisses from before were when you were being my ‘Therapist’. There are, I presume, different boundaries now?”

“Now?”

“You said that you were here in your own time. Are we starting from scratch?”

Harry steps back. “You just need to get better,” he says, carefully. “Then we’ll… we’ll think of something.”

-

The days pass slowly. Snape sleeps a lot, and in his waking moments wants nothing but Harry. Harry tries taking time off work, but often just spends the days sitting in the uncomfortable chair and watching Snape sleep. He knows that Snape gets upset if Harry isn’t there.

-

Harry sits waiting for Snape’s return from another surgery.

It has been hours. Harry’s eyes feel raw.

The door bangs open - the bed is wheeled through. 

Harry scrambles up. Snape eyes him sourly from the bed.

“How are you? How is he?” Harry asks, darting forward and fumbling in the sheets for Snape’s hand.

“Sore,” gasps Snape, eyelids lowered.

“But you’re ok,” Harry whispers. On impulse, he kisses Snape’s hand.

“Don’t fucking kiss my hand, like I’m somebody’s grandmother - kiss me on the mouth or not at all!” Snape snarls, eyes popping open.

Harry recoils instantly, releasing Snape’s hand as though burnt.

“I’m sorry,” Snape hisses, trying to snatch Harry’s hand back. “I’m sore and irritable. Forgive me.”

“It’s ok,” Harry whispers.

He links their fingers together and watches as Snape falls asleep.

“I’m so proud of him.”

Harry looks up.

An old man is standing in the doorway. He is wearing luminous orange socks with purple polka dots, and a red scarf. He gives Harry such a generous smile that Harry feels warmed instantly from the sight of him.

“It is a testament to how far he has come; that he has chosen you as the one he would fall for,” the old man adds, eyes twinkling.

Harry squirms. “Me? How far has he come? Do I know you?”

“He has been obsessed with bettering himself all his life. You would have been too, I suppose, if you’d had the start in life that he had. Life in Cokeworth was hard for his family. I have watched him prosper in so many ways, but always alone. And now, it is so heartening to see what his nature has chosen - kindness; tenderness and compassion. Which is what you represent, my boy - your gentle nature is so alien to him. I always feared that he would have no-one.”

“Are you his father?” Harry breathes.

“Oh no, no - a friend, only. He and I have been friends for a long time. He's a good man, Harry.”

Harry looks down at Snape’s sleeping face.

“I believe you,” he whispers.

When he looks up, the old man is gone.

-

“Promise me something,” Snape blurts out, fingers twitching for a cigarette.

He makes Harry jump, twisting in the plastic hospital chair, a tangle of arms and legs. Snape is staring in his direction - his eyesight is not sufficiently recovered for him to be able to meet Harry’s gaze. “Yes?” Harry ventures.

“Promise me that, if you do not end up with me, you will not wither away in solitude.”

Harry snorts. “I cannot know how I’ll end up. I can’t control who I meet or what I feel. I could end up becoming a monk.”

Snape’s fingers reach out and, after a bit of fumbling, stroke his arm. 

“Promise that you will not,” Snape hisses, quiet and intense.

“Why?” Harry asks.

“Because someone as beautiful as you should be someone’s lover, someone’s treasure,” Snape spits. “If you are not mine, you need to find someone who will love you as I do. Promise me.”

Harry shakes his head. “I’m not thinking that far ahead, Severus.”

“I mean it. You must not stop looking.”

“I’m not looking,” Harry says, lifting his book up again. “Why are you so maudlin tonight?”

Snape bites the inside of his mouth, lips pursed. His eyes blink fast. Harry puts down his book and shifts his chair closer to the bed. 

When he tries to take Snape’s hand, however, Snape recoils with a hissed “No!”

“What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong?!” Snape sneers. “How can you stand to touch them?”

Harry looks at Snape’s battered hands. Visible in between plaster and bandages are strips of skin and stitches that look like Frankenstein has reattached bits at will. Snape, forbidden to move his fingers, has ignored the advice - to his enormous disappointment. Many times, Harry has come in to find Snape trying to pick up a glass of water, or a pencil, only to drop them blindly and sob, thinking himself alone. For a man whose profession demanded that his hands be instruments, Harry can only imagine how disheartening this must be. “Have you given any thought to what you’ll do for work if they don’t recover?” he whispers.

Snape twitches his hands underneath the blankets. “No,” he spits out, curling up, crab-like, his mouth so downturned that Harry can’t help but stare at the unhappy bow of his lips. “Why have you forbidden me from smoking?”

Harry sighs. His impulse is to tell Snape all about the owl sanctuary that he has spent the day at - to encourage Snape that he could join Harry and spend time there, even if he does not recover his sight. 

But he can’t quite do it. He can’t quite invite Snape into his life like that.

At that moment, the door is pushed open. A trio of doctors enter - one older, and two of Harry’s age, presumably students. Both of the students gasp on sight of Snape.

“Mr Snape!”

Snape apparently recognises the voice - he sneers. “Who’s there? Not - Longbottom?”

“And I, Mr Snape,” interrupts the other. “We heard you’d been in an accident - may I be the first to offer my sympathies.”

“You’re not the first, Malfoy; you’re about four weeks late,” Snape snaps. “Come to gawp, have you, Longbottom?” he snaps. Longbottom refuses to approach the bed; glances towards the door.

“Who are you?”

Harry suddenly realises that he is being spoken to by the other student: a blond, with a sneering expression to rival Snape’s. He glances at Snape - painfully aware, by the miserable slump of Snape’s shoulders and the defensive sneer twisting his features, that more is happening here than some former students accidentally walking in on their mentor’s misfortune.

It seems so unfair, despite Snape’s unkindness. The man is hurt, after all.

“I’m his partner,” Harry almost shouts.

The blond chokes, inelegantly. The Longbottom boy looks horrified. Even the Consultant’s eyebrows rise.

“You?” the blond hisses.

Harry lays a hand on Snape’s shoulder. “Yes,” he says. It is only when he touches Snape that he realises: Snape is holding his breath. “Are you here for a reason?”

The consultant seems to gather himself. “Severus,” he says, and Snape sighs. “It’s Remus. I’m sorry about what’s happened to you.” Snape snorts. “We’re here to start talking about physio. As we need to get you up on that leg as soon as possible; you’ve got oedema there. It’s normal, but we need to get you moving, get you fitted for a prosthesis. Has anyone talked to you about that yet?”

“No,” Snape whispers.

“We’ve been talking to your surgical team -”

“I’m not going to be able to work again, am I,” Snape interrupts. 

Remus pauses, looking down at his notes. “Severus, you know I can’t give you any sort of predictions at this stage. I’d be… very surprised if you were back in theatre after the injuries that you have.”

Something about Snape seems to evaporate in that moment; he sags back against his pillows, eyes closed. “Send them away,” he hisses. The blond sneers at Harry, looking him up and down, and grips the bed rail as though determined to stay, but Remus motions to them to leave. Longbottom is out of the room in seconds.

“What about other… physical functions?” Snape asks, voice very small, once the door has closed.

“Such as?” Snape nods towards his groin. “Sexual functions? Or to do with going to the bathroom?”

“Both. Either. Sexual,” Snape adds.

Remus looks at his notes again. “Your colostomy is hopefully going to be reversed in another ten weeks - that’s the plan. They are hopeful that, as you still have sensation in your other leg and in your groin, it means that any spinal injury is minimal. We probably won’t know about… the possibility of…” he squirms, “erections or ejaculation until later on.”

With a jolt, Harry realises what has been worrying Snape, and he sits down, hard. “Oh,” Harry says, half to himself. Snape turns to look in his direction, teeth bared.

Remus is looking thoroughly uncomfortable now.

“That is terrifically reassuring,” Snape sneers.

“I’m sorry, Severus. I’ll just… I’ll come back in the morning and bring the prosthetist to have a look at you.”

Snape shrugs, every fibre of his being focussed apparently on Harry - who is struggling to breathe.

Remus makes his escape.

Neither of them speaks.

“This is news to you?” Snape hisses.

Harry opens his mouth - to say that he had been so nervous about Snape wanting sex that he hadn’t considered the possibility that it would never be possible - 

Then he closes it again.

“Want to take back your little announcement about our ‘partnership’?” Snape adds, sourly.

“You’re not pleased about that?” Harry ventures.

“I don’t believe it for one second,” Snape sneers. “It was said for effect; you thought I needed protection from those two dunderheads. You are also trying to persuade yourself that you feel for me. Anyone can see it a mile off. Do not insult me.”

Harry gets up, readying himself to walk out.

“Are you wearing a red shirt?” Snape asks him, suddenly. Harry looks down at himself.

“Yes,” he says. Then - “Oh my God! You can see that?”

“Only a glow: a red haze.”

“Can you see me?”

“No,” mutters Snape. “And it’s only the right eye.”

“Then this is a sign that it needs to get stronger, take them up on the prosthesis. If you’re getting your sight back, why don’t you set your sights on something - on operating again!” Snape shakes his head, his gaze fixed on the window. “Why not?”

“I… there’s no point,” sighs Snape.

Harry sits down. “Why do you say that?”

Snape shrugs.

“I was talking to some of your doctors the other day. I offered to do some yoga with you? I’ve been practicing it since I was nineteen. It’s gentle,” Harry adds, with a small smile. Snape shakes his head again. “Well, what exercise did you do, before?”

Snape turns his head and glares at him. Then turns back to the window.

-

Harry is napping. He becomes aware, slowly, that Snape’s arms are around him.

He feels lips ghosting over his own. For a moment, he forgets to breathe.

“I’m sorry,” growls Snape’s voice. “I had thought you were asleep.”

Harry opens his eyes. He realises that he has leaned in his sleep, and rested his head on the pillow beside Snape’s. He sits up straight in the uncomfortable chair. “Do you often kiss me in my sleep?”

Snape will not quite meet his gaze. “I have done,” he admits, risking a glance at Harry. His gaze slides away again. He huffs out a breath. His lips move, soundlessly.

“Quite a few times?” Harry prompts him.

Snape nods once, a sharp jerk of the head. “I had another visit today, before you arrived,” he blurts out. Harry waits. “It was about you.”

“Me?” Harry chokes.

“They were also talking about… things I can do… that we can do… that don’t involve penetrative sex,” Snape continues. He doesn’t quite meet Harry’s wide eyes. He is blushing.

Squirming, Harry winces. “There’s no rush, though, is there?” he squeaks. “I mean, I know you’re getting better, but…

“It’s hard,” Snape growls. “And not even literally. I need to get fit. You deserve a lover who’s fit. How old are you again?”

“I’m twenty five,” Harry says.

“I’ve never had a lover who was twenty five, even when I was twenty five, myself.”

“Yoga is good for you.”

Snape fixes him with a dark stare. “I’m only interested… in being better in bed.”

Harry can’t believe he is about to say this: “Doing exercise will help your dick stay hard for longer.”

Snape’s eyes darken. “How long do you need it hard for?” he growls.

Harry splutters. “I… don’t know. I imagine a… a while.” His face is aflame.

-

Harry is approaching Snape’s room. From the end of the corridor, he can see the nurse’s trolley, and he recognises the girl with bushy hair, who is speaking to her colleague with her back to Harry.

His lips split into a grin.

“If I were being sympathetic to him, which I’m not, I’d say he’s lost hope, and feel sorry for him. Just do what I do: in, clean up, and get out. Don’t turn on the light, work in the dark,” he hears Hermione mutter.

His grin falters. Hermione knocks upon Snape’s door.

“Go away!” comes a low snarl from the other side.

Hermione opens the door briskly and stands there, as if steeling herself. Her colleague hangs back.

“It’s Thumper,” he hears Snape sneer. Hermione bows her head and enters the room. 

“Thumper?” Harry asks her colleague, as he hears Hermione bumbling around in the near-darkness.

“The rabbit. He… it’s her teeth,” the other lady murmurs, by way of explanation.

“Oh,” Harry says, frowning. Hermione’s front teeth are neat but a little… oversized. Anger bubbles up in his throat.

He steps into the doorway. From where Harry stands, Snape looks gaunt and severe, shrouded in shadow.

His face seems to glow white in the gloom. Harry can just about make out his high, sharp cheekbones, large hooked nose, and the penetrating eyes, un-bandaged now and black as coal.

The thin lips are already curled into a sneer - which stutters when Harry squints at him, then scowls. “Mind your manners,” Harry snaps. 

Hermione freezes, her hands full of used towels. “Harry, don’t,” she hisses.

Snape’s eyes widen. “I beg your pardon?” he growls, his voice a dangerously low rumble.

“You heard,” Harry says blandly, picking up a pile of discarded newspapers. “Are we throwing these away, Hermione?”

“You don’t have to help me,” Hermione whispers, not looking at him.

Harry puts the papers down. He crosses to the doorway angrily and turns on the main light. “Better, Hermione?”

Snape goes pale at the sight of - “Harry,” he chokes.

“I need to borrow you for a moment,” Harry says to Hermione, as Snape splutters in the bed.

-

“What was that about? Are you ok?” Harry demands.

Hermione sighs, closing the door of the linen closet and locking them in. “It’s normal, Harry. Relax. I’m used to it.”

Harry buries his face in the plastic piles of towels and sighs. His shoulders slump.

“It’s fine. Really, it’s fine.”

“He was so horrible to you,” Harry groans.

“Things aren’t easy between you two?” Hermione ventures softly.

“You can say that again,” Harry says, muffled, into the plastic wrapping.

-

Harry sits outside sombrely in the cold, with a can of coke, breath puffing out in steamy wisps. He is joined by a cautious young man in nurse’s scrubs, clasping a cigarette packet.

“Mind if I hang out, or shall I stand over there?” the young man asks, gesturing awkwardly with the cigarettes.

“Nah, you’re ok, I’m used to it now,” Harry shrugs, and offers his can. “Even though I banned Snape, I’m sure he still does it sometimes.”

“Thanks. I’m Colin,” grins the young man. “You’re Mr Snape’s young bloke. I work with Hermione sometimes. You look like you could use a smoke.”

Harry nods, gloomily. They sit side by side on the wall and pass the can - and the cigarette - back and forth.

“How do you cope with him?” Colin murmurs, suddenly. “He’s… he's almost impossible. Do you know how bad it gets when you’re not around?”

“He’s not a nice man,” Harry mutters.

“Worse: he’s started getting drunk in the evenings, when you’re not visiting.”

“What?” Harry gasps.

“He’s doing it right now. It’s because you’ve left. Someone’s gonna get in serious shite tomorrow.”

“Drunk?” Harry blinks. “N-now? Where does he get the stuff from?”

“Dunno. People seem to bring it in for him - he must have plenty of cash splashing about. A rule went around last week that anyone who did would be disciplined. Hermione said you probably didn’t know.”

Harry sighs. “I didn’t. I should go back in, I feel bad I left Hermione in there.”

-

“Harry, wait - before you go in -” Hermione catches his arm.

“He’s drunk. I’ve been told,” Harry says, grimly.

“Whatever you do - don’t confront him about it - that’s when it gets ugly. I can come in with you -”

“That won’t be necessary, thank you,” Harry says, and pushes open the door.

Snape is lying in his bed, with his eyes closed. He is crying quietly. As Harry approaches, he can smell it - Snape’s breath is like toxic fumes.

“What are you drinking?” Harry asks, crossly. “Smells like paint thinner.”

“My beloved’s eyes are nothing like the sun.” Snape slurs softly, cracking open his eyes and gazing up at him.

“Where’s the bottle?” Harry insists.

Snape lifts one hand, in which he clasps a clear glass bottle.

“Hand it to me,” Harry says, and Snape snorts. “I said, hand it to me, please.”

“You’ll not get it,” Snape mutters mildly, and raises the bottle to his lips.

“I will,” Harry says, “if I have to straddle you and wrench it out of your fingers with my teeth.”

Snape, halfway through taking a swig, chokes. During his splutters, Harry prises the bottle free. 

Snape glowers wetly at him. “Give it back.”

Harry moves just out of reach. “Come and get it.”

“Manipulative little shit.”

“Don’t speak to me like that.”

“I… Fine. Kindly return my property.”

“No.” Harry shrugs.

“Give me my bottle, or get in my lap,” Snape smirks.

At Harry’s faltering, Snape’s face falls.

“You see what life has done to me,” Snape whispers, scraped open raw and urgent all of a sudden. One shaking hand reaches out, clammy and damp. 

Harry balks at Snape’s desperate grasp.

Recoils.

Snape’s wide eyes, transfixed by Harry’s face, shutter. Something, burning bright and terrifying inside the black stare, withers. 

Snape’s face turns intentionally cruel. 

The thin lips twist. “Am I less of a man to you, now?”

“How did you get the alcohol?” Harry chokes out.

“It doesn’t matter how - answer the question!” Snape snaps, eyes searching Harry’s face frantically.

“Do I see you as a man?” Harry repeats, softly.

“Yes,” Snape hisses.

“I don’t know much of what kind of man you were before,” Harry says unhappily.

“But you had intimate knowledge of me -”

“I barely knew you -”

“You knew everything of me - or, at least, I knew you. I knew all that was important about you from the very moment that I met you -”

“Here,” Harry says suddenly, thrusting the bottle back into Snape’s clenching fingers. Snape fumbles with the bottle, almost drops it. 

When he looks up, he is alone.

-

Harry hears the sound of the bottle smashing as he hurries away down the corridor.

-

When Harry doesn’t show up for visiting hours the following day, he receives a phone call.

It is Hermione. “I’m really sorry to do this,” she says, by way of greeting.

“What’s he done now?” Harry asks, sinking into a chair.

“He won’t eat. He must be half starved by now, but he won’t eat. He says he’s not interested. We’ve had the doctor look at him to see if he’s sick, but it isn’t that.”

Harry closes his eyes. “No. Alright. I’m on my way in.”

“I’m sorry, Harry. I know that you don’t -”

“It’s fine. Please don’t,” Harry whispers.

-

Harry opens the door softly. On the tray in his hands: a carton of orange juice, a pot of ice-cream and a cheese sandwich. 

Snape, body rolled toward the window, does not turn at the sound.

“You haven’t eaten all day,” Harry croaks out - and Snape’s head snaps around at blistering speed, putting him off-balance. He flounders in the bed, drowning in sheets - then eases himself up achingly into a sitting position. All the while, he stares at Harry as though he has seen a ghost, even as Harry is easing the tray onto his lap.

“Thank you,” Snape mutters, not even glancing at the tray.

“If you’re still hungry after that, I’ll get you another,” Harry nods.

Outside, it has started snowing.

-

Weeks pass. Things get worse.

“Where’s Harry?” Snape demands. (Harry is just outside the door, but he is talking to Hermione, and he is not ready to go in yet.)

“Harry isn’t… Visiting time isn’t for another twenty minutes, Mr Snape.”

“Then I’ll wait.”

“But the day staff need to finish our rounds – the night staff have other responsibilities.”

“I said, I’ll wait.”

“Mr Snape, it surely cannot make any difference to you who washes your hair! It’s ten minutes of your time!”

“Then it’ll only take ten minutes of Harry’s time!”

“You have it now, or not at all.”

“Then fucking not at all! Just piss off, you sour old witch!” 

There is a watery crash, and the ward sister comes storming out, slamming the door behind her.

Harry’s heart freezes, like the ice on the road outside. (On the patch where Snape was hit.)

“I’m so sorry,” the sister says, to Hermione. Harry can see that she is trembling. “There’s water all over the floor. I’ll clean it up -”

“No, it’s fine, Poppy,” Hermione interrupts, gently. “We’ve all had those moments. He’s such an arse.”

“It doesn’t normally get to me,” Poppy says, weakly. “He’s just so relentlessly awful. Even when I worked with him as a surgeon, he was like it. I don’t know why I expected him to be different as a patient.”

“It’s ok,” Hermione sighs. “Harry will be in soon and he’ll wash Snape’s hair and it’ll all be fine.”

Harry pulls the door open fully.

“No, it won’t,” he growls. He flings open Snape’s door, to the sight of Snape half propped up awkwardly in a wet bed (and the amazement of the nurses).

Water is splashed all over the floor, and the sheets are soaked. 

Snape himself is damp, with his stringy hair falling lankly about his sour face. The lamp is broken, and an upturned bowl lies on the floor, beside a wet stain on the cream wall.

Snape, shirt half off one shoulder, pauses in his struggling and snarls. “You’re here,” he says, crossly.

“Yes,” Harry snaps, “and you’re such a… a… a git! I’m going home - you just don’t deserve anyone to help you! Hermione is such a good woman and you treat her like dirt! I just saw the way you spoke to the sister. You can wash your own stupid hair!” he shouts.

“I’m disabled!” Snape screams back.

“You’re a bloody arse!” Harry yells at him. (Hermione and Poppy clutch at each other in delighted horror.) “You don’t make any effort to help yourself improve! It’s been weeks!”

“I can’t walk, you ignorant shite!” Snape howls.

“Then let them bring the prosthetist down to you! Or at the very least, get in the bleeding wheelchair! What the hell are those wheels for? You can’t continue to act this way; I’ll not help you wash your hair until you’ve been up to every single staff member on this floor and apologised to them!”

There is a silence.

“They can come here,” Snape snaps.

“No, they can’t – who do you think you are – they have stuff to do! Get out of bed and go find them! Every last one! Then I might – might - think about speaking to you again!”

Harry steps back and slams the door.

Then he stalks back down the corridor, past Hermione and Poppy, and tries to get himself a cupful from the water cooler. His hands are shaking.

“That was the most brilliant thing I have ever seen in my life,” Hermione whispers.

~

There is no noise from Snape’s room for about half an hour. It does not go unnoticed to Hermione that Harry lingers outside the door, listening anxiously – before scuttling back to the visitor’s lounge, head down, when anybody comes into the corridor.

At about eight o’clock, there is a crash. 

Hermione catches Harry’s arm as he dashes past her. “Wait,” she murmurs. “Give him time.”

“He might be hurt,” Harry growls.

“He’s fine,” Hermione says, firmly. “All his breaks are mended; it’s just his muscles. He hasn’t had exercise in weeks. Give him time.”

~

At eight forty-five, the door to Snape’s room opens.

Looking more haggard than Harry has seen him, wearing a wet nightshirt and with a tartan blanket draped over his one-and-a-half legs, Snape wheels himself through the doorway. 

His shirtsleeves are rolled up to the elbow, exposing tattoos on his white forearms. His lank, grimy hair falls over his face, through which only his hooked nose protrudes. Gripping the wheels of the chair with trembling, grim determination, Snape manoeuvres himself carefully into the corridor. 

Hermione, Harry, and Poppy all pause.

“Sister?” Snape grits out, hauling himself with painful, visceral slowness along the corridor. “May I speak with you, please?”

Poppy approaches him, clutching a folded towel to her chest for protection.

“I must apologise for the way that I spoke to, and interacted with, you earlier,” Snape growls, glaring at the floor. “It was… unacceptable.”

“Yes, it was,” Poppy says, defensively. “But you’ve always been like it.”

Snape looks up, crossly. He glowers at Harry. “What else am I supposed to say to her?”

“Promise to treat me with respect from now on. We’re here to enable you to live your life again, not to keep you prisoner,” Poppy says.

Snape’s black eyes widen, glittering like dark beetles in his white face. “I… see that,” he says, gruffly. “I shall… I have been unfair to you.”

“Yes. Right. Thank you,” Poppy says, and stomps away, looking dazed.

Snape looks affronted.

“I think it’s a bit rich to expect her to adore you after one apology,” Harry says loudly.

“What else can I do?” Snape snaps.

“It’ll take time,” Hermione ventures. “But you’ve made a start.”

“I apologise to both of you,” Snape says, quickly.

“Apologise properly. You made Hermione cry last week,” Harry insists.

“I have never made her cry,” Snape sneers.

“Yes, you have,” Hermione interjects, defiant.

Snape looks at her suspiciously. He grits his teeth. “Then I apologise to you,” he says, low. “I will endeavour to treat you with the respect you deserve, as an intelligent young woman.”

Hermione’s eyes widen. “I… That would be nice. Thank you.”

~

By ten o’clock, as Harry has been quietly napping in the lounge chair (long past visiting hours are over, but nobody has the heart to ask him to leave), he opens his eyes – to find Snape, in his wheelchair, sitting defiantly in front of him. Snape’s dirty hair hangs about his face, and he is trembling and sweaty. But a grim determination has fixed his flushed features – the sinews and muscles bulge on his arms as he grips the wheels. 

“I have done it. All the staff,” he snarls. A bead of sweat drips from his hooked nose.

“Oh. Right,” Harry says mildly, nodding. He gets slowly to his feet. “Let’s… go get you sorted, then.”

He strolls off down the corridor, in the direction of (he hopes!) the bathrooms, leaving Snape gaping after him in silence. 

Harry hears the wheels squeak as Snape starts to hurriedly wheel himself in pursuit. 

They reach the doorway of the bathrooms. 

Harry hesitates.

Snape mistakes this for anger. “You are still cross with me,” he barks, almost incredulously. “I have humiliated myself for you -”

“Excuse me,” says Harry softly, “but you humiliated yourself, all by yourself.”

Snape, affronted, wheels past him into the bathroom. “What do we do, then?”

Harry is frantically trying to think of a way to get Snape’s hair wet without soaking the rest of him.

To his relief, Hermione’s head appears around the door. “Need anything?” she hisses. “How much of a wash are you giving him?”

“Everything,” Snape says quickly. His black eyes glitter.

“Er,” says Harry.

“How are we supposed to do this?” Snape asks.

Hermione looks at him, assessing. “You transferred yourself from the bed to the chair – so you can transfer yourself onto a stool in the shower, if I get you one.”

“I’m not sure -” Harry begins.

“I am not strong enough,” Snape growls.

“Whose fault is that?” Harry interrupts, sharply. “When there are men who do Olympic sports with the same injury as you?”

“Fine,” Snape sneers.

Hermione sets the sliding board up, then stands back, looking anxiously at Harry. Snape looks at the stool for several minutes.

“I’ll fall,” he pronounces.

“Which isn’t the worst thing that’s ever happened to you.” Harry shrugs.

“You’re not going to help me at all?”

“I’ll go out and buy you some weights to help you build up your muscles again.”

“That’s not helping,” Snape says, sourly.

“Alright,” Harry says. He kneels beside Snape. “Lean on me. We’ll do it fifty-fifty.”

Greedily, Snape seizes Harry’s strong shoulder, fingers digging into the flesh. Harry has to put one arm around him in the end, but they get there.

“Ok. Shower control is here. Shampoo is – you can’t reach it, hang on. There. There’s a towel over the back of your wheelchair,” Hermione adds, hanging one. 

“Ah. Well, you can reach everything then,” Harry smiles. He edges towards the door.

Snape stares at him in horror. “You’re leaving? Who’ll do my hair?”

“Have your arms suddenly stopped working?” Hermione mutters.

Snape looks as if he wants to punch something. He mutters darkly to himself. “I came all the way down here, you do realise.”

“For a shower.” Harry nods.

“For you to… You got me here under false pretences,” Snape hisses.

They glare at each other.

Finally, something in Harry gives. He swallows, hard. “Ok. You start washing yourself. If you keep your pants on, I’ll… come in and scrub your back for you,” Harry concedes. “Is that better?”

“And my hair?” Snape snarls. “I hate washing it so much I’ll probably just leave it if left to myself.”

“Then I’ll not come near you, looking like that. You look like a wild beast,” Harry says firmly, as he shuts the door.

Snape mutters something that Harry cannot make out.

~

Later, Hermione finds Harry sitting wearily outside the bathroom door, watching the steam escape from beneath it.

“Long night?”

Harry looks up, wearily. “Bit long.”

“How’s he doing – he’s not… He’s not still in there washing himself, is he?”

“Yup.”

“Good God.”

“I promised to scrub his back. And I think I’ll still have to do his hair.”

“Oh yes?” Hermione grins, eyes twinkling. 

Harry, however, does not notice. He plays with the laces of his shoes.

“Harry?” comes the rather watery call from the bathroom.

“That’s me,” Harry says grimly, rising with the effort of a ninety-nine-year-old. He leaves Hermione watching him thoughtfully in the corridor.

It is like a steam room inside. “Can we open a window? Is there a window?” Harry calls, above the gush of the shower. He takes his shoes and socks off and rolls up his jeans, then pads across the wet floor. Snape is sat hunched under the shower, his hair hanging around his face in ribbons. Water drips off the end of his nose. 

He is glowering at Harry. He is only wearing a pair of frayed white boxers, which hide very little.

Harry forgets how to breathe. 

Then he squints, distracted. Snape’s torso, as well as his arms, are covered with -

“Oh,” he says, approaching as one would when encountering a tiger. “You’ve got lots of tattoos, everywhere.”

Snape looks down at himself and his scowl deepens. “I was young and stupid.”

“You don’t like them?”

“You’re getting wet,” Snape says, but his voice is very mild, and his eyes are darting all over Harry’s rapidly dampening t-shirt.

One of Harry’s hands seems to be reaching out of its own accord -

“Sorry,” Harry says, drawing his hand back. He hopes that he is not blushing.

“You can touch,” Snape intones, his own hand reaching - before the fingers knot into a fist and it falls. “I am made of flesh and blood.”

There seems to be something about the combination of Snape’s sourness, dark hairy chest and virulent tattoos that Harry’s brain cannot comprehend. Water soaking his t-shirt and jeans, he draws nearer to Snape and stares in fascination at the inky patterns and pictures that snake across Snape’s chest and shoulders. “These must have taken a long time.”

“I went through a phase of it,” Snape says darkly. He has a snake inching over his shoulder, and another snake emerging from a skull on his left forearm. Only the space over his heart is clear.

“Why nothing there?” Harry whispers, fingers brushing the wet curly hairs over Snape’s breastbone.

“Nothing had sufficiently captured my… If I were to choose now, I would put a green eye there,” Snape said, looking up sharply at Harry’s face.

“A green eye?”

“Over my heart.”

Harry draws back. Then he realises he can see Snape’s cock through his soaked boxers.

“Can… can it get hard?” Harry whispers.

Snape wipes soap out of his eyes and stares at him. “Yes,” he growls. “I’m sure you could make it hard, if you tried.”

“What would I do?”

“Put your lips around it?” Snape smirks.

Harry chokes. “I could,” he whispers. “But aren’t we here to… give you a wash?”

It is only after he picks up the sponge that he realises - washing Snape is going to be sexual, too. Snape leans back on the stool, his back to the wall, and parts his hairy legs. Harry’s mouth goes dry, despite the steam. Snape’s eyes are penetrating.

-

Harry is so distracted after the shower that he realises he’s wheeled Snape all the way back to his room.

“I spoilt you, there,” he says, settling the chair beside the bed.

“You are good to me,” Snape says, in a tone that sounds more grumbling than complimentary. “Can I have a hot water bottle? Or will you tell me to get it myself?”

“I’ll ask for one,” Harry says quickly. “But you might want to think about asking the physio to come and see you. Unless you want to stay here forever?”

“I could have you washing my back forever,” Snape leers.

“Aren’t you sick of being here?” Harry asks.

“Yes,” Snape sighs.

“Then do something about it,” Harry says, simply. He plumps the dry pillows up on the bed and helps Snape to slide up onto it - then leaves without a word. 

~

“Mr Snape has complained of soreness in his arms following his physio appointment today, so I gave him Ibuprofen at six o’clock. He can have paracetamol later, but it’s just soreness from not using muscles, as opposed to injury. He has eaten, could do with a wash – he suggested a bath so perhaps someone can treat him to that?” 

Hermione nudges Harry, who glares.

~

Harry knocks (he has started knocking on Snape’s door, but he does not know why), then opens the door.

Snape’s head comes round sharply. He has been staring at the clock. He is in his wheelchair. His hair is greasy but combed neatly – he shoves the comb under his pillow on sight of Harry.

“Hullo,” Harry says, with a small smile.

Snape’s black eyes burn as they look at him.

“Good evening,” he says softly.

“I heard you’d done physio today,” Harry says, sitting on the end of Snape’s bed. Snape wheels over to him.

“I did,” Snape replies, low. “The woman was a witch, but I suffered through it.”

Harry laughs. “It’ll only make your – and our – lives easier.”

“Having only one leg is so irritating,” Snape says, looking frustrated.

“You’ll do fine,” Harry says.

Snape merely looks at him.

“Is there anything you need?” Harry asks.

Snape sighs. “A cup of tea? You would be welcome to…” He pauses. “I will get you some tea if you make yourself comfortable.”

“Oh! Ok,” Harry shrugs, smiling. “Tea it is.”

He misses the sudden light in Snape’s eyes as he wheels himself from the room.

~

When Snape returns with the tea tray balanced on his lap, and a small saucer of biscuits, Harry is propping himself up in Snape’s bed with Snape’s pillows. He has made himself comfortable, but regrets it instantly at the hunger that he sees blossoming in Snape’s eyes.

“Do you need assistance?” Snape asks, settling the tray on the table by his bed.

“Where did you learn to speak so smartly, being from Cokeworth?” Harry asks.

Snape looks affronted. “I prefer not to have a constant reminder of my father, every time I open my mouth. Can… may I sit up there with you?”

Harry almost bolts from the bed as Snape hoists himself up. He sits beside Harry, their thighs brushing, and Harry feels as if his whole left side has been electrocuted. 

“I’ll just… let me take the…” As Harry is reaching across to retrieve some tea from the bedside table, Snape leans back – and Harry’s arm is instantly around his shoulders.

Suddenly they are very close.

“I, oh…” Harry murmurs, trying to wiggle his arm back.

“That will do fine, thank you,” Snape says, low, his face only inches from Harry’s.

“My, um…” Harry mumbles.

“Yes, Harry?” Snape whispers, lifting his chin, his dark eyes glittering.

“My arm,” Harry whines, feebly.

Snape kisses him.

Snape kisses Harry, who struggles in his arms like a stuck fish, eyes huge – before closing his eyes and all but flinging himself into Snape’s arms. 

They embrace, clinging to each other, not space for breath between them. 

Then Harry draws back. “I, ah, I don’t… I’m not…”

“It’s alright,” Snape breathes, stroking his face as though trying to calm a frightened animal. “It’s alright, please.”

Harry shakes his head. “I’m still not…”

“Just relax, please, please,” Snape whispers, like a prayer, his eyes closed. “I would like to confess something to you,” he says, opening his eyes. “I would like to confess… my love to you.”

“Your love?” Harry splutters. This is all rapidly getting out of hand - the note that Snape wrote to him hasn’t been mentioned in weeks now -

“Of you. My… adoration, of you.”

“I… oh,” Harry said, shifting awkwardly.

“Yes. I realise that I have never told you face-to-face. But you come here every day, you encourage me - your gentle spirit brings me such peace -”

“That’s ok,” Harry winces. He starts to edge off the bed. “I read your note, I remember. I’m just… I’m really crap, I know. You love me very much.” He stands.

“Yes,” Snape says, face turning stormy.

“Yes… what? Yes, I’m crap?”

“You are,” Snape snarls, blinking hard. “But not just that. Why do you stay with me, if you don’t love me back at all?”

“I… I don’t know. I can’t leave, I just can’t. I have to be with you.”

“Right,” Snape says slowly, and something cracks open in his face. He gives Harry a small, nervous smile, like a rodent peeking out of a hole.

“I mean, I’ve not been with men and I’ve always been closed off to this stuff so it’s only natural that I’d just not notice -” Harry blurts out.

“Have you finished?” Snape asks, curtly.

“Um,” Harry says, fingers clenching and unclenching. He sways slightly. “Yeah.”

“Come here, then,” Snape says.

For all his sins, Harry does.

-

The next night, as Harry enters the ward, Snape wheels himself up to him, fairly vibrating with achievement. 

Harry blinks in surprise. “God,” he murmurs, looking at the wiry muscles trembling inside Snape’s pale shirt. “You’ve, um… You’ve really… You’re coming along, aren’t you?”

“My next challenge,” Snape says, face set into a mask of concentration, as though he has one goal in speaking to Harry and is determined to accomplish it, “is to take a trip out. Under my own steam. She suggested I go for coffee.”

“You hate coffee,” Harry says immediately.

“Yes,” Snape rolls his eyes, “but such places normally serve tea. I just need someone to accompany me.”

“Oh, right,” Harry says, hanging up his coat (missing the way Snape’s eyes travel ravenously over his lean back and pert buttocks). “Are you wanting me to go with you?”

“You work during the day, every day?” Snape asks, curtly.

“Only some days. It’s flexible - Ginny can do some. Do you want me to go into town with you on Tuesday?”

Snape nods. “Good,” he says, “that’s very good.” Then he wheels himself back to his room. Harry is left staring after him as he progresses down the hall.

~

“Snape’s asked me to take him into town for coffee today,” is all that Harry says.

Every single person in the staff room (he has started having a coffee with them before his visit - as he helps them with Snape, he has sort of been adopted) stops what they are doing and stares at him.

Harry goes red and shuffles a bit.

“I knew you were good for him,” Poppy mutters, and claps Harry on the back. “He’s getting his life back.”

“I… it’s just for coffee,” Harry mumbles.

Several other people congratulate him on their way to their various jobs, until it is just him and Hermione.

“Is there something I ought to know?” she asks, smirking.

“Er… Do you want to know where we’re going, in case there’s an accident?” Harry asks, anxiously.

“No, about Snape!” she grins.

Harry frowns. “He was told by the physio that he needed to try going out under his own steam.”

“And you said yes.”

“He can just about stand me, I suppose,” Harry shrugs.

“Oh don’t be silly, Harry. Snape hasn’t been outside in all the time he’s been here - this is like your first proper date!”

“Well, whatever it is, it’s only one drink.”

Hermione sobers. “It is? Really? I thought it meant… things were progressing for you?” She looks almost disapproving. “Aren’t you starting to string him along a bit, if you still don’t fancy him?”

-

Harry wishes for the hundredth time that Hermione hadn’t referred to their coffee outing as a date. He is very anxious as he waits downstairs for Snape. 

After all, it is just a cup of coffee. 

Isn’t it?

When Snape appears from the lift, however, in a smart shirt and jacket (which Harry hasn’t even known Snape owned) and with his hair properly combed, Harry glances down at his own tatty trainers and winces.

“Where are we going?” he asks, awkwardly zipping up his own thin jacket. “Do you want a pub or a coffee shop?”

“I think, for my sobriety’s sake, a coffee shop,” Snape says sourly.

Harry grins. “True, if I took you out and got you pissed, they probably wouldn’t allow us out again.”

Snape smirks.

~

The coffee shop is quiet, and they find a table by the window, Harry moving chairs out of the way so that Snape can manoeuvre himself into position.

Snape looks flushed, sweaty, and harassed. 

It has clearly been further to the main street than he has anticipated. Harry has been tempted to offer help more than once, but is unsure of his reception. He is already debating how to raise the issue of pushing Snape back to hospital again.

Snape picks up a napkin from the table and mops his brow with it, eyes closed. 

“So, coffee?” Harry ventures.

Snape scowls, reaches into his breast pocket and pulls out a twenty pound note.

“A pot of tea and some lunch, I think,” he snarls.

“Sandwich?” Harry asks, taking the note.

“And a scone or something. And whatever you want,” Snape nods.

“Oh, I can pay for myself, I’ve got three quid somewhere,” Harry says, fumbling around in his pockets.

Snape’s scowl deepens. “I wish to pay for you, just go and do the ordering,” he snaps.

By the time Harry returns with a tray, with a little selection of cakes and sandwiches on, and the drinks, Snape has got his jacket off. 

His shirt underneath is damp with perspiration, in unfortunately obvious patches. 

It is only as Harry is approaching that Snape seemed to notice this. 

He raises one arm and his eyes widen in horror – then he glances up and meets Harry’s gaze. Harry goes bright red. Snape instantly reaches for his jacket again. His fingers shake.

“Hey,” Harry says softly, putting the tea tray down and pressing one palm on Snape’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t expect anything less and I really don’t mind.”

Snape pauses, fingers gripping his jacket collar indecisively.

“Cool off. What you look like doesn’t bother me.” Harry smiles in what he hopes is a friendly manner, passing Snape his tea.

Snape regards him rather strangely. Their fingers brush as he takes the cup.

They sip their drinks in silence.

“When are we going to acknowledge the strange situation we are in?” Snape growls suddenly.

There is a heavy silence between them.

“Do you have to do this?” Harry whispers, gaze unfocussed, looking anywhere but at Snape. 

“Ashamed of me?” Snape sneers, but his eyes betray a strange fragility that makes Harry’s unsure heart hurt.

Silently, Harry puts down his half-eaten sandwich.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he says desperately. “Why do you have to force it all the time?” Ignoring Snape’s distressed hiss and pinching fingers, he evades the touch and slips, head down, out of the door.

He does not turn as he walks away from the cafe, so he does not see Snape slump forward in his chair, his head in his hands.

He waits outside, and pushes Snape back to hospital in silence.

-

Poppy puts her head around the cloakroom door.

“Harry? Thank goodness you’re here! It’s, er… It’s Snape.”

“I’m not staying long,” Harry mutters.

“You look awful,” Poppy sighs. “But he’s a mess. We won’t be able to do anything with him tonight. He’s drunk off his face and he’s going to end up doing himself an injury.”

“What makes you think I can help anything?” Harry asks sadly.

“He idolises you. I don’t know your history, but -”

“I was going to be his sex therapist” Harry snaps. “He was going to pay me to sleep with him. I didn’t like him. Then he got hurt. That’s… all it is.”

“All?” Poppy says, with a sad smile. “Then why didn’t you take the excuse to back away when he had his accident?”

“Because I’m demented,” Harry growls.

Poppy’s smile falters. “Were you hoping you’d fall in love with him? And it hasn’t happened?”

“I’ve never… this is my first… gay experience and I just don’t… I wasn’t brought up to be all that comfortable with it. The people I lived with were… really unkind about men who kiss men, and I know it shouldn’t still affect me, but it does. It makes me… nervous. What if… I don’t know.” Harry trails off, eyes fever-bright. “He loves me so much,” he whispers, slumped wearily against a locker. “He’s just… fallen head over heels, out of practically nowhere. Which is beautiful and yet - at the same time - completely terrifying. For me.”

“And probably for him.” Poppy nods.

“He’s probably not from a background that would have encouraged him to kiss men either,” Harry agrees. “But that doesn’t seem to bother him. I wish I could… let go as easily as he has.”

“How many relationships have you had?”

“Just one, with a girl. She’s amazing, but it just wasn’t right… I’ve been wondering recently whether I was always supposed to end up with a man anyway. She said something like that, once.”

“But is it this man?” Poppy nods.

“That’s the problem,” Harry sighs. “I just don’t know.”

Poppy is silent.

-

Harry enters the room quietly and closes the door until only a crack of light slithers in. The rest of the room is dark. He assumes Snape is in the bed, so he gets a shock when the older man’s voice comes from over by the window.

“I can still fuck, you know,” Snape snarls, his voice dark and urgent. “I’m not impotent. I can still get hard. I’m sure, if I took something now, I could get hard enough to please you -”

“Don’t,” Harry whispers, and closes the door. 

Darkness enfolds them.

“Want to do it with the lights off?” Snape leers, speech slurred grotesquely. “Am I that hideous that you need total darkness to spread your legs?”

“Stop it,” Harry says, defiantly. “What have you drunk now?”

“I need you,” Snape snarls - there is the sound of creaking and movement. Harry stays frozen by the door, even though he knows that Snape, drunk, is advancing on him with grim determination.

There is a sudden silence. Then, with a fumbling, groping precision, Snape catches Harry’s hand - and with an unusual gentleness. It is that alone which prevents Harry from pulling his hand free immediately. He pauses, looking down at where their entangled fingers would be.

“You really love me,” Harry says, softly. Wrenching his fingers free, he feels for the doorknob.

“I really do,” Snape mutters, breath damp. “They are letting me go home. Please, come and live with me. Help me.”

Harry’s breath sucks in on a gasp.

-

 

The end of February...

 

“You look awful!” Hermione says, sitting down beside him.

“Thanks,” Harry grumbles. Then he lets out a sad bark of laughter. “Sorry.”

“Lestrange said that you’ve moved in with Snape. She’s furious about it, of course,” Hermione smiles. “All the money you’ve lost her.”

“I’ve not ‘moved in’ with him,” Harry says. “He just… he needs a lot of help.”

“And that’s you, is it?” Hermione persists. “You look terrible.”

“He’s doing a lot better.” Harry shakes his head. “But obviously he’s re-learning how to do everything - to walk, to use his hands - so it’s difficult for me to be away.”

“Hasn’t he got nurses coming in?”

“Yes, they do - but he… He tells them that he’s alright for help, because he has me. They just do medication, and then the physical therapists do his exercises… Anything else is… me.”

“Are you still teaching yoga?”

“I tried,” Harry sighs, “but it was too much time away - one time, he had fallen out of bed, and I got this panicked phone call during class because he thought he’d broken his hip again… After that, he asked me if I’d stop.”

“But if you give up your job, how do you pay rent -”

“That was all part of the talk we had. I live at his for nothing - he pays for everything.”

“So, you’re his carer.”

Harry bends over, his elbows resting on his knees. “I suppose so.”

Hermione gently lays a hand on his shoulder. “Is it any… easier for you? Have you started to… to…”

“Feel anything for him?” Harry whispers, voice so small that she has to strain to hear him. “I… He’s doing so well. I want to love him,” he confesses. “I sleep in the spare room still and it hurts him, I know it does. Well, I often wait outside his room while he sleeps, in case he has a problem - ”

Harry’s phone vibrates in his pocket - in a flash, it is out, and he is tapping away at the screen. “He’s up,” he gasps. “He’s been asleep all morning - the occupational therapist wore him out yesterday. They’re trying to help him build upper body strength. He hates every second of it, but he’s trying. He’s even doing a bit of yoga with me - although he tends to use it to try and wrap himself around my -” He blushes. “And he’s… trying to treat people better. Not like when he was in hospital.”

Hermione smiles. “So, now you have to go?”

“I guess so - I’m so sorry, Hermione. We’ve been here two minutes - and all we’ve done is talk about me, that’s awful.”

“I think your need is greater than mine, Harry. Shall I walk you home? That gives us another half an hour?”

Harry grasps her hand and squeezes it, once, before letting go. “Please. Tell me, how’s things with you?”

-

Harry closes the door and leans against it. His head is pounding; lights flicker before his eyes like a fairground.

“Angel?” The voice floats down from upstairs.

“I’m -” Harry chokes. “I’m here, Severus.”

“I’ve fallen,” Snape calls, urgent.

Harry hurriedly toes off his shoes. “I’m coming.” He trudges up the stairs, to find that Snape has made it as far as the bathroom. He is even in the bathtub itself - but the water is half in the tub, and half all over the floor. “Oh.”

“I was attempting to… Well, you can guess,” Snape scowls. “Anyway, I can’t get out.”

Harry nods. He fetches a stool, and approaches, half frozen. His breathing slows as the lower half of Snape’s body comes into view. 

He is wearing the wet pair of dingy white boxers, with nothing left to the imagination.

The only time that Harry normally sees Snape’s dick is in the presence of the nurses. He takes a deep swallow as he looks at it.

He bends, and hauls Snape out of the tub, Snape’s grasping fingers digging into his biceps and his back. 

Immediately they are both soaked - and collapse onto the bath mat and the tiled floor in a tangle of limbs, Snape half on top of him. 

“You’re being deliberately awkward!” Harry hisses out - as Snape pushes his damp, tattooed body up against Harry’s, and starts mouthing at Harry’s neck. “Feeling better today, then?” Harry gasps.

“My heart,” Snape murmurs, and he sucks a kiss into the taut skin below Harry’s jaw.

Writhing, Harry half pushes himself up, but Snape’s fingers intertwine with his own, and Snape’s body is heavy and damp above him. “Aren’t you hurt from your fall?”

“The only thing that hurts is in here,” Snape groans, one hand releasing Harry and pressing against his own chest, over his breastbone. 

Harry feels the growing erection pressing into his inner thigh, and the wetness of Snape’s skin soaking through his clothes. “Don’t you have nurses coming soon? Isn’t it nearly one o’clock?”

“They will just go if they find us fucking,” Snape growls, and his hand slides under the hem of Harry’s shirt, fingers splaying awkwardly across his stomach.

“Please,” Harry gasps, squirming against him, clawing at the tiled floor - Snape’s hand grasps his wrist and holds it down. Snape’s other hand slides down his body and cups his groin.

Snape goes very still.

Harry forgets how to breathe.

Snape raises his dark head, and his black eyes are flinty. “Are you no longer accessible to me now?” he spits. “Because we have veered off from the ‘Therapist’ and ‘Patient’ roles? You are completely frigid; cold to me?” He sucks in a breath, and sneers. “Is this about money?”

He is still holding Harry’s wrist to the floor. “It’s not,” Harry pleads, edging out from under him.

The doorbell rings.

“I suppose that’s a relief for you?” Snape whispers, his words dripping with scorn.

Harry shoves him off, and wrenches his wrist free - scrambling up, his heart beating wildly - Snape rolls onto his back on the floor, and Harry can see the outline of his heavy erection through the fabric of his boxers. “Let me help you up, what will they think,” he mutters.

“Tell them to go away,” Snape snarls, fingers drifting down to cover his groin. “I will get back to bed on my own.”

“I’ll get you a towel,” Harry mumbles.

“Just fuck off!” Snape shouts at him. 

Shocked, towel limply gripped in his fingers, Harry bolts.

He only realises that he has carried the towel down the stairs when the nurses on the doorstep look surprised at it. “He’s not in the mood,” Harry says grimly. “Really, don’t,” he adds, when one of the nurses opens her mouth, frowning. “It’s not… now is not the right time. We’ll see you next time.”

“Are you alright? You’re soaked,” says one nurse.

Harry looks down at himself and laughs weakly. “Oh. Um, it’s… He had a bath. He’s fine. We’re fine, really.”

-

When he gets back upstairs, he finds Snape crawling on his stomach in between the bathroom and the bedroom. “You’re not to crawl, what did they tell you?” Harry demands. “You’re a man, not a slug.”

Snape turns his head, and fixes Harry with the nastiest stare that Harry has ever seen - the heat of it seems willed to flay the flesh from his bones. 

“Leave me alone, before I do you an injury,” Snape hisses. Crawling on his elbows, boxer shorts still damp - Harry cannot help but look at the tattoos on his back -

“I can’t leave you alone,” Harry asserts.

Snape stops crawling. His stringy hair is half wet from the bath, and sticking to his forehead with the effort of moving his body. Panting, Snape glares up at him.

Harry stands over him, chest butterflying.

“So what are we going to do now?” Snape growls, finally.

“I… We…”

“What are you to me, exactly?” Snape snaps. “Are you my carer, my lover, my paid therapist, or some stupid fuck pulled off the street who doesn’t know which way is up?” He ends on a shout, spit flying from his mouth.

Harry flinches, the corners of his mouth twisting downwards. “Please calm down,” he whispers.

“I can’t fucking calm down!” Snape screams. “I’m in love with you - painfully, desperately in love with you - and all you do when I touch you is squirm away from me like a stuck fish!”

Harry hovers from foot to foot, fingers clenching - eyes on Snape, wet and maimed and wound up tight - “Please don’t force this,” he murmurs.

“Force it? FORCE IT?” Snape howls. “You little shit, it’s been nearly five months!” He swipes a hand out, snarling - Harry steps back. “That’s it, run from a disabled man,” Snape shouts.

“I’m trying to help you, you impossible bastard!” Harry screams back. “I’ve been here, haven’t I?”

“Present in body; but not in mind, not in soul,” Snape sneers.

“I am here, I am… fully here,” Harry snaps.

“Have you been ordered by your mistress to assist me, to make sure that I recover to pay for those sessions of sex?” Snape demands. “Or, better still, are you waiting for the right moment to stick me with the cheque for the past few months, and then demand payment by the hour for your sexual services?”

“You make me sound like a prostitute!” Harry cries.

“Is that not what a person is when they are paid for sex? What did you almost have me do - pay you for sex!”

“That was different,” Harry pants.

“It was sordid,” Snape sneers. “How many other men have you given ‘therapy’ to? How many other poor bastards like me are there out there? You’re clearly well qualified for the job - you’ve managed to ensnare even me.”

“There haven’t been… other men, I told you,” Harry grumbles. “You were - are - the first one.”

“But before me, then - unpaid? What sort of man would go into that job without loving to spread his legs wide open for anyone -”

“I didn’t!” Harry shouts. “How dare you! I’m sorry I didn’t want to have sex just then, alright?”

“If you’re so inexperienced, would I have got my money back if my date was so useless and frigid in bed that he couldn’t even get a fucking erection?”

“What are you really angry about?” Harry demands. “You don’t want me as just a therapist any more, I know that. And I’m trying.”

“Trying to what - trying to love me? Trying to stand me? Trying to grit your teeth and summon up the courage to be with a hideous, crippled old man - what are you trying to do?”

Harry’s tongue sticks to his teeth as if a dead bird in his mouth, like his gums are full of dry feathers. He coughs. 

“I know you don’t desire me - how could I not?” Snape sneers. “A man would have to be really fucking stupid to miss that you’d rather I stayed bed bound and crippled forever - the thought that I might be able to get up and try to fuck you is terrifying to you! Well, I’m not safe anymore, Potter - I’m recovering, and I can get hard, and I love the wretched bones of you -”

Harry sinks to his knees, grips Snape’s face in his trembling hands, and presses their lips together. Shock only freezes Snape for a moment - suddenly, Harry is flat on his back, and his mouth is full of Snape’s tongue.

Snape kisses as though he were drowning, and Harry were oxygen. Harry often feels that he is gagging on Snape’s tongue, and Snape’s fingers are like pincers digging into his flesh. The next thing he knows, Snape has ripped his t-shirt open all the way up to his neck, and shoves one hand down the back of Harry’s jeans and boxers, gripping one of Harry’s buttocks with his sharp fingers. Harry chokes; most of Snape’s weight is upon him, and Snape’s hipbones and hard cock are digging painfully into Harry’s groin -

Suddenly the weight is gone, and Harry is being stripped below the waist - his jeans and boxers come off in one go, and Snape’s eyes are ablaze. He pushes Harry’s legs apart on the carpet, and settles between them, propped up on his elbows. His breath ghosts over Harry’s painful cock. “Beautiful,” Snape growls. “Are you going to teach me what to do with you?”

Harry shakes his head. “Virgin,” he confesses, eyes closed. “I… I haven’t…”

“Virgin?” Snape hisses. “How can you be?”

“I’ve been waiting,” Harry glares at him. “You waited. My ex and I, we didn’t… It never progressed to…”

“Then why on earth did you take that stupid job -”

“It was almost therapy for me too, ok? No strings, help people learn how to connect.”

“Except it didn’t work out how you imagined,” Snape smirks, “and here you are, on my carpet.”

“You wouldn’t hurt me,” Harry shivers - but he is not sure that he believes this. 

They tussle on the carpet. He ends up on his front; Snape is over him -

“Ow, no, stop!” Harry gasps. “Not like this!”

“You fucking shut up,” Snape snarls. “You’re mine now!”

“I - please - I don’t want to do it like this!” Harry groans, face in the carpet. Snape’s fingers claw between his buttocks and then something bigger and harder is pushed at him. Harry yells, but Snape holds his shoulders down.

“Stop. Struggling,” Snape grits out, and his hands are slippery with sweat as he forces Harry into the carpet until it's filling his mouth. He thrashes, and tries to kick Snape.

Harry closes his eyes; tears squeeze out from beneath his lashes. “Please don’t do this, I was just starting to love y-” His fingers claw at the carpet. Snape’s breathing is thick and harsh in his ear.

Harry’s mind goes blank. Where the strength comes from, he never knows, but he forces Snape off and scrambles away -

“Wait!” Snape howls, but Harry seizes up his clothes and shoes, heart in his mouth and Snape’s yelling in his ears.

He bolts down the stairs, dresses hurriedly in the entrance hall - and dashes out into the afternoon sun.

-

 

The end of March...

 

A white owl settles beside Harry, fluffing out her feathers. Spring is coming. The grass crunches with ice under his boots. The owl hoots, and Harry looks up. 

An old man is standing by the gate.

The owl claws her way up onto Harry’s shoulder, watching him. Harry pauses, then slowly begins to walk over.

His heart is in his mouth.

He fears… He fears that the old man has come to tell him that Snape is dead. They regard one another over the gate.

“She is a beauty,” says the old man. The owl on Harry’s shoulder bobs her head, as if she agrees with him. “May I?” He holds out one arm and, with a flap of her wings that nearly takes Harry’s head off, the owl hops across. “Does she have a name?”

“They called her Hedwig,” Harry ventures. “She’s my favourite.”

“Do owls mate for life?” the old man asks him. Two blue eyes gaze penetratingly at him.

“Barn owls do,” Harry says, wilting. “I’m not sure about Hedwig.”

“Alas,” says the old man, smiling sadly. “She has no mate?”

Harry shakes his head. “She’s quite young.” He bites his lip. “You’re here about him, aren’t you?”

The old man strokes Hedwig’s back - before Harry can warn him, her beak lashes out. The nip only makes the old man smile. “Alas.”

“Are you alright?” Harry demands, holding out an arm to take Hedwig back. “I should have said, I’m sorry. She’s always been prickly like that.”

“And yet she is still your favourite?” the old man twinkles at him.

“Please,” Harry pleads. “What have you come to tell me? Is he ok?” The old man sighs. “Is he a…alive?”

“Oh, oh yes,” the old man says, “he is alive. That is why I have come. I am here to entreat you; to appeal to that kindness and compassion of which I spoke once. That gentleness which made a lonely man such as Severus fall so deeply -”

“Do you know… what he tried to do?” Harry hisses.

The old man leans against the gate, eyes downcast. “I do.”

“Did he tell you?”

“He did not have to.”

Harry winces as Hedwig claws at his shoulder. “Then you’ll understand why I -”

“I do, completely. You can imagine… just how much he regrets it. He acted out of foolishness and desperation. Harry… I must tell you, he has blamed and tortured himself with guilt.”

“I… I kn… I knew he would,” Harry finally whispers. “I wouldn’t wish anyone to suffer.”

They are silent.

“Were you badly hurt?” asks the old man. “Please forgive my asking.”

“No,” Harry sighs. “It… it wasn’t… He only tried. He didn’t do anything. I was mainly horrified that he would attempt something like that -”

“He would never, ever repeat -”

“Why have you come now?” Harry asks, abruptly. “I could have worked out for myself that he’d feel awful.”

“He needs you,” whispers the old man. “But he would never seek you out to apologise to you because he feels unable to ask that you burden yourself - he has no confidence in himself. No confidence that he could offer you anything that you might need.”

Harry slumps against the other side of the gate. “I… Has something happened to him, that you’ve come all the way out here? Has he got worse?”

“He has left his house, the house where he last saw you. He is not working. He is not attending physiotherapy.”

“Where is he now?”

“He has gone to his late mother’s. After she died, he kept her old house on Spinner’s End, in Cokeworth, as a memory of her. He couldn’t stand to be in his own house alone, after you left him.”

Harry rubs a hand over his eyes. “It was his own fault.”

“I know,” says the old man gently. “But he has given up on himself. That is why I have come - I am not asking you to stay with him, only to speak with him, tell him that you forgive him. Encourage him to live again, unburdened by guilt.”

“Do I forgive him?” Harry whispers.

“You were almost in love with him, were you not? You know him. You know that he has a good heart - but he cannot advocate for himself, so here I am.”

“I…” Harry flinches as Hedwig takes flight from his shoulder and soars away across the field. “He’s very ill, isn’t he? Or you wouldn’t have come.”

The old man nods. “I have found, at least for myself,” he ventures, “that falling in love is like the Spring.”

Harry looks at him in confusion.

-

Less than a day later, Harry stands before the last house in the row on Spinner’s End, hands shoved deep into his pockets. A chill that has little to do with the dank weather has suffused his bones. 

Snape’s mother’s house is… practically derelict. 

Harry has never seen so bleak a place. One of the downstairs windows is smashed - and boarded over with cardboard and a plastic bag. Even weeds do not grow properly in the tiny frosted garden at the front; withered carcasses of plants lie dying across the path. 

The gate is hanging off.

‘Surely, no-one lives here?’ Harry thinks.

Too afraid to walk in to the sight of a corpse, he stands outside, hesitating in the gathering dusk, shivering harder and harder. 

Finally, when the dread in his chest has tied itself into a hard knot, he huffs out a breath, visible on the night air, and draws his hands out of his pockets.

Picking his way down the path, he closes his eyes tightly - then knocks.

There is no sound from within.

Trying to peer in through the grubby windows yields nothing.

“Severus?” he calls, through the cracked hole in the front window.

He paces back and forth between the window and the door. He tries again, pounding his fist on the wood.

Nothing.

He loses it. He hammers on the door with both fists, over and over, until pain is shooting up his wrists from splinters - then he kneels, and prises the letterbox open. “Severus!” he yells. “Are you in there, Severus?”

Then he peers in to look through, and is shocked into almost-apoplexy -

“Bloody hell!” he cries, at the sight that awaits him. Severus is crawling toward him down the dark, rubbish-lined hallway, on his elbows. His face is covered with a beard, his hair matted, and he holds both palms aloft out of the mess as he crawls. 

Harry can see the blood. “What’s happened?” he calls. “Oh God, oh God, you’re hurt, let me in!”

Snape lets out a harrowing, hacking cough, and convulses. His eyes squeeze shut, then open and looked up at Harry - they are wild: desperate, and unfocussed.

“Let me in!” Harry whimpers, sticking all his fingers through the letterbox.

Snape shudders under the force of his cough. Harry lays his cheek against the wood and heaves a dry sob because he cannot see; because Snape is such a pitiable sight that it makes his heart bleed. 

His fingers are gripped, suddenly, sharply, then released. When he draws them back, he finds there is indeed blood.

There is a scrabbling sound, and the clink of a little chain, and a thud that makes Harry wince - then the door scrapes back a few inches. Harry pushes his way in, half frantic - and nearly trips over Snape, sprawled just inside the doorway in the darkness.

“What happened to your hands?” Harry demands, voice shrill.

“Dropped a bottle. An accident. Earlier today.” Snape’s voice is hoarse; his breathing crackles. He sounds dazed.

The hallway he lies in is filthy; the floor is almost invisible under months’ worth of litter. He looks up at Harry as though he cannot quite believe he is really there. Harry slides to his knees, he picks up Snape’s torn palms gently. Closer, he can smell the alcohol on Snape’s breath; hear the horrible wheezing sounds his breathing makes.

“You’re going to need stitches in these,” he says softly, then realises that Snape is gazing open-mouthed at him. “What is it?”

“You’ve… come back,” Snape slurs, dumbly, licking his dry lips.

“You’ve… grown a beard,” Harry says, with a small nervous smile.

Snape keeps staring at him. 

Harry holds onto Snape’s hands. “Why are you up here?” he says, at last. “Why your mum’s place?”

Snape drops his gaze; looks away. “There was no point in staying there, once you…” He sniffs.

“Can we go to the kitchen? I really do need to look at your hands. How long have you had this cough?”

Snape shrugs, still looking at the floor.

“Please,” Harry tugs at his wrists. “Where’s your leg, or crutches?”

“Somewhere,” Snape says, waving a hand dismissively down the hall. 

Harry releases him, stands, and stares down the hall. Then he starts shakily picking his way over the detritus littering the carpet. On his left, he passes a small kitchen, with a table and chairs. On the right is a sitting room lined with books, where a nest of blankets has been made on the floor. Everything is filthy; it is as though Snape were squatting in his own family home. Empty bottles litter the carpet. A meagre fire burns low in the grate; the harsh air streams in through the broken window, fluttering the flames. The room is very cold.

At the end of the hall is a cramped toilet, and a staircase. Looking in the bathroom cabinet, Harry finds a bottle of Dettol and a plastic lunchbox packed with old bandages. As he comes out, hands full, he sees Snape has crawled a little way down the hall towards him, and is watching him warily.

“Come in here,” Harry says, ducking into the kitchen. He does not expect there to be any hot water, and is pleasantly surprised when the tap shudders and splutters out lukewarm water. There is grime everywhere, but he finds a cup in a high-up shelf that is clean, and fills it with water and Dettol, listening all the while to the sounds of Snape crawling down the hall towards him. There are no clean cloths, so he is opening one of the packets of bandages as Snape crawls into the room.

“Do you need some help to get up on the chair?” Harry asks, simply. Because he says it matter-of-factly, Snape considers it for a moment, then nods.

Heaving Snape up onto the chair sets him off into a coughing fit, during which Harry becomes more and more concerned.

“How long have you been like this?” he asks, sharply.

Snape’s head snaps up, teeth bared.

“Concerned, Potter?” he barks - but is prevented from speaking again by another fit of coughing.

“When we’ve bandaged these up, we’re going to the hospital,” Harry says firmly. He kneels before Snape, damp bandages in his fingers. “This will sting,” he adds, then presses one to Snape’s red palm.

Snape winces; a flinch, nothing more. Then he sighs. “Why are you here?” he asks, looking wearily down at Harry.

“Because I made a mistake,” Harry says, discarding the red, soggy bandage and opening another.

Snape’s fingers close around his.

“What?” is hissed at him.

“I made a mistake,” Harry repeats.

“You made a mistake?” Snape spits, bitterness suffusing his whole frame. “I tried to assault you, and you made the mistake?”

“You didn’t try to assault me,” Harry scowls. “Well, I mean… I’ve thought about it a lot, and I’m ok. It’s my choice to forget about it, which you should respect -”

Snape holds up a hand. Harry trails off.

“I won’t hear it,” Snape says. “I tried to take you against your will.” His voice is very dark. For the first time, Harry gets an indication that there is more to Snape’s self-neglect than despair at his own body. 

“Are you going to do it again?” Harry asks, looking Snape straight in the eyes.

Snape looks away. “As if I’d get the chance to come within two feet of you now,” he snaps. “Why are you back, Potter? If I were sober, I would be horrified, you seeing me like this.”

“I am horrified for you,” Harry says bluntly. “You look like a wild creature, and you’ve made yourself sick.”

“What does it matter?” Snape says, bleak.

“It matters!” Harry snaps back. “I’ve come back for you and you’ve deserted yourself!”

“What do you mean, you’ve ‘come back’ for me?” Snape’s voice is suddenly very intense; his whole body has gone still, apart from his atrocious breathing.

When Harry looks up, he finds that Snape’s black eyes burn as they look down at him. Quietly, he wraps a bandage around Snape’s palm, then picks up the other hand and begins to wash it.

“How did you do this?” he asks, suddenly gripped by anxiety. What if Snape greets his new confession of love with contempt? He does not meet Snape’s eyes.

There is a long silence. Harry does not dare look up.

“I was attempting to get my false leg on, but fell on a bottle,” Snape mutters, sounding a little ashamed of his surroundings. Then: “Please, Harry.”

Harry looks up, pausing, bandage half wrapped around Snape’s other palm.

Snape is regarding him with a strange mix of terror and horror and… something else.

“Do you still love me?” Harry breathes, voice trembling.

A look of pain flashes across Snape’s face; his eyes swim with hurt. “Always,” Snape confesses. Then he shakes his head bitterly: “But have I not ruined it?”

“I’ve… I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since I left and I… I wouldn’t have come back if you had.”

Snape’s eyes go very round. “It cannot be,” he breathes.

“I… I was pretty much all the way to being in love with you before I… left, but I didn’t realise it. And when I looked back on what happened, I realised I’d fallen in love with you without knowing it. I’d been so worried about being gay, and about having this duty towards you, when all I ought to have done was just let it grow organically and… The old man, when he came to see me at the owl sanctuary, said that falling in love is like a garden in winter - under all the fallen leaves, things grow. When I was alone, it was like spring happened, and the leaves fell away and there was this flower growing underneath - oh my God, I don’t make any sense!” Harry laughs, unhappily. “It didn’t make much sense then, either. That old man is pretty crazy.”

“It’s perfect,” Snape says gently, and Harry feels a bandaged hand caress his cheek, fingers stroking the skin at his temple. Then, more urgently: “Harry.”

“I went back to where I grew up, just this morning,” Harry continues tremulously. “I knocked on the door - my cousin and his parents, who treated me so badly and made me terrified of being gay, and… And they opened the door and I said, “I just wanted to let you know that I’m going to live with a man in a wonderful gay relationship." and they were horrified, and said that they disowned me. And it was amazing. I feel… like I’m floating -”

Harry looks up - and the spark ignites. He is reaching up and Snape is reaching down - and they collide with him half up on his knees and Snape half off the chair. 

Snape kisses him as though they have never kissed before, and Harry hardly notices the bitter taste of Snape’s mouth, or the feel of his beard, or the salty taste of his skin when they land on the cold tiled floor and he has his hands inside Snape’s shirt and his mouth attached to Snape’s scarred neck. Snape throws his head back and groans - then his body convulses in a cough and Harry starts to withdraw in concern.

“No!” Snape barks, and Harry is pushed onto his back on the tiles, his shirt pulled up. Snape buries his scarred, bearded face in Harry’s smooth stomach, inhaling against the skin. His fingers work on the clasp of Harry’s belt, as Harry’s fingers thread - and get tangled in - his messy hair.

“Say yes,” Snape groans, and Harry does.

Harry stares at the ceiling in wonder as Snape’s fingers winnow inside his jeans and boxers - then Snape’s hot mouth closes over his cock and Harry cries out in delight, sitting up and swearing, smile half on. His eyes flutter closed as Snape’s mouth works on him - then he swears again and hauls Snape up, ripping at Snape’s tattered checkered shirt. 

The flash in Snape’s eyes is almost feral, and he crawls over Harry’s body, his lost leg nothing when they are pressed this close, wrenching Harry’s shirt over his head and laying his chest over Harry’s. Harry kicks his way out of his own boxers and slides his hands inside the stained tracksuit bottoms that Snape wears.

“Wait!” he murmurs, into Snape’s mouth, remembering something else he has seen in the bathroom cabinet. As he crawls out from underneath Snape, however, he can feel Snape recoil. “I’m not stopping,” he says, firmly, as Snape looks up at him, face already contorting with regret. “I’m getting lube.” He stays a moment to watch comprehension dawn in Snape’s dark eyes, before darting down the corridor and seizing a tub of Vaseline from the bathroom cupboard. 

As soon as he returns, he is roughly seized. “Are you sure?” is gasped into his ear, and Harry groans and shoves the already-open tub into Snape’s hands.

There are no sounds for several minutes, other than a frantic, wet ‘squelch’ and fumbling, then Harry’s muttered “fuck” and Snape’s groan. Harry ends up getting fucked on the filthy kitchen tiles, half on his side, with Snape panting in his ear, arms twisting Harry’s back tightly against his chest. Harry can feel Snape’s heart hammering against his back (and Snape’s lungs crackle with each gasped breath) and he turns his head to allow Snape to take his mouth again. Snape shoves into him over and over until Harry is delirious, clinging to the body behind him.

They finish with Snape on his back and Harry curled over him, bouncing in his lap, both moaning and sobbing into each other’s mouths.

-

After it is over, and Harry has splattered come over both their stomachs, he feels at Snape’s beard lightly. Snape’s eyes are closed; he looks exhausted. His mouth twitches slightly in a half-smile.

“You don’t like it?”

“I prefer you without it,” Harry smiles, and kisses him. “It’s better kissing you without it.”

“I’ll get rid of it,” Snape says instantly. “It was only… laziness.”

“I’m impressed you can grow something quite as bushy as this,” Harry says. Then he sits up, still straddling Snape’s hips. “I’m sure they’ll clip it in the hospital for you.”

“Hospital,” Snape says flatly.

“We’re going,” Harry insists. “I think you’ve got pneumonia. We’re going now. Come on.”

“We?” Snape asks, opening his eye.

“Of course ‘we’,” Harry snorts. “Come on. I’m really worried about you.”

“This is supposed to be the afterglow,” Snape grumbles. “You have a terrible bedroom manner.”

-

As it turns out, Snape does have pneumonia. Harry finds himself sat, yet again, at Snape’s bedside as he waits for an x-ray and a blood test, then later as he is admitted for treatment. Snape’s fingers tangle with his own all day; Snape’s gaze is rarely torn from his face.

“I can’t believe it,” Snape says, over and over, stroking Harry’s face in apparent wonder.

Snape ends up in a ward, with five others. Harry is told that he cannot spend the night, and Snape looks at him in desolation and despair, far more upset about this than by being told his pneumonia could have been fatal if left untreated for much longer.

“I’ll come back tomorrow,” Harry reassures him.

“What if you are just a dream?” Snape mutters, unhappily.

“I don’t think you’d dream having pneumonia,” Harry snorts. “You’re stuck with me, I’ll be back tomorrow whether you like it or not.” 

He smiles.

Snape, however, has been deadly serious. “My angel,” he says, and clings to Harry, and watches Harry intently all the way out of the ward.

Harry goes home to Snape’s mother’s house, armed with a bag of cleaning products. He does not sleep that night - he feels as though he will not sleep for years - but stays up cleaning, sorting, and throwing away. The state of Snape’s house keeps making him randomly burst into tears, especially at things like Snape’s poor bed on the lounge floor.

Returning to hospital the following morning, with a plastic bag of toiletry items for Snape, Harry feels suddenly shy. 

He looks into the ward. Snape is awake, looking out of the window, twisted into an unhappy curl in the bedsheets.

Harry approaches the bed. “Morning.” He smiles awkwardly when Snape jumps. “Someone’s given you a shave,” Harry chokes out.

“Why does that upset you?” Snape asks, frozen.

“You look so thin,” Harry whispers, edging closer. “I’m so sorry there’s been nobody to look after you.”

Snape reaches for him, then. Harry approaches, really looking, now, at Snape’s poor torn face. The ropey scars on his neck are less angry than a month ago. The cuts in his upper lip have finally smoothed over, but a deep scar just above his right eye is thick and white, cutting through his eyebrow.

He is not handsome, but, then again, Harry thinks fondly, he was never handsome before. “You look better,” he says.

As soon as Harry sets the plastic bag down, he has to look up, for Snape is there, soothing the hair back from Harry’s face.

“Let me look at you,” Snape says, a smile playing around the corners of his mouth.

‘Look’ turns out to mean ‘touch’, but Harry doesn’t mind.

Snape smooths the battered fingers of his left hand over Harry’s cheek, then across Harry’s lips. “You have a beautiful mouth. I have always thought so.”

“I… oh,” Harry blushes at the nearness of Snape’s body. He knows what Snape wants. His body seems to know it too; every pore in his skin feels open, as if he is intoxicated. 

-

“Do you want dinner?” Harry starts to say, but Snape is so close.

They have come to Snape’s house in Cumbria. Harry even drove the Porsche.

The house is isolated, bordered by fields of black sheep with newborn lambs, and the cottage garden is full of budding plants. 

Harry still has the key to the Cokeworth house in his pocket. It is clean in there, and tidy, and the window is fixed, but he has not taken Snape back.

Snape himself seems… hesitant. 

“Might I ask…” Snape murmurs.

“You don’t need to be scared,” Harry whispers, their breath mingling in the space between their mouths.

Snape’s hands tremble, and he grips the sides of Harry’s face (but gently now), his lips twisting. A tear leaks out from beneath the lashes of one eye, and he takes a deep, damp gasp. “God!” He sniffs. “I cannot… believe… that you are really here.”

Harry lifts his hands to the top buttons of his own green shirt, and starts to undo them. Slowly, he bares his chest to Snape, whose mouth falls open. “I’m really here, I’m… fully here,” Harry repeats.

“Is this going to be my sex lesson?” Snape murmurs. His gaze is lowered; his mouth is very close to Harry’s.

“I’m not your therapist,” Harry whispers. Snape’s mouth brushes against Harry’s lips; a feather-touch. “And we’ve already had sex.”

“Then… what are you?” Snape’s voice is rough.

“I’m… whatever you want me to be,” Harry replies.

“My lover,” Snape nods.

“Yes,” Harry whispers - and closes the distance between their mouths.

It feels like a hundred years ago that they kissed in the Deane Forest by the lake. They are both so different - Snape especially, and not just physically. The Snape that kisses Harry back now is tender, and trembles as he crowds Harry carefully up against the wall, as one would try to gather a flock of tiny birds.

“If I had both my legs, I’d have you right here,” Snape murmurs, snapping at the skin below Harry’s jaw.

“Bed, then!” Harry gasps.

-

The bed sheets are damp and twisted, twined around two interlocking bodies that undulate like waves on the ocean. 

Salty sweat trickles down Harry’s neck, and is devoured by a flat tongue, which licks up the column of his neck and slurps at his ear.

“I was going mad imagining where you had gone,” Snape growls in his ear. “Who you were with. How many other men might be fucking you, the way I wanted to.”

“There was no-one,” Harry gasps, as Snape sucks on the skin at the juncture of his neck and shoulder. He clings to Snape’s back as Snape moves over him.

“Am I still the only man who has kissed you?” Snape asks him. His hands are on Harry’s hips.

“Yes,” Harry whispers - and then Snape’s lips are on his again, and Snape’s tongue is pushing its way into his mouth slowly. He is being crushed into the mattress by the weight of Snape’s body, but it feels good. He has imagined this; imagined being made love to by a man. Snape is beautiful now, from the tattoos, to the dark hair covering his chest and belly and nestling around his cock - 

Harry looks down at it, blinking. It’s larger than his own, and really hard. “You don't need any help then,” he murmurs, half to himself.

“What, darling?” Snape mutters, into Harry’s sternum.

“You’re really hard.”

“Good of you to notice.” Snape kisses his way down Harry’s taut stomach.

-

Harry and Snape are lying in bed. Snape lies on his back, with Harry curled against him, his head on Snape’s scarred shoulder.

Snape is silent for a long time, before speaking. They have made love some time ago.

“It felt as if…” Snape pauses. “Because I was almost middle-aged, I had been subconsciously waiting to fall in love, perhaps for my entire life. So, when it finally happened, it was as easy as though a switch had been pressed. In one moment it was on, and everything about me was completely transformed.” He sighs. “I make as little sense as you. It is like the Spring, as you said.”

“Because you say you fell for me so completely, so fast, did you never worry that might not be a sure foundation for it, though?” Harry whispers.

Snape shakes his head. “I have had no doubts. Not one. I have been completely certain from, perhaps, the second time that I met you.”

“Wow,” Harry breathes.

“I felt that you were exactly what I wanted, and I knew that without having to know any details of your life. I just knew you, instinctively.”

“Which was why, I suppose, it hurt when I didn’t come to that realisation myself at the same time.”

Snape holds him. “It has been awful,” he says. “But it is, I hope, now over?”

“Over,” Harry whispers, leaning up to kiss him. “I’ll never leave you. You need never worry again.”

“I wonder sometimes whether the interactions that we would have had, doing the ‘Therapist’ and ‘Patient’ approach, would have ever led to your returning my feelings?” Snape muses.

“You are rather different now to how you were,” Harry admits. “After the accident. You are more… open.”

“Then I am grateful for it all,” says Snape.

“I wish I could go back to that time and tell myself to stop worrying, to let it grow naturally. I was so scared.”

There is a pregnant silence.

“May I ask something?” Snape murmurs, and Harry starts. “I have been wondering… why you came back? What moment happened for you to… decide to?”

Harry props himself up on his elbows. “It was your friend, the old man. He came out to visit me at the owl sanctuary, to warn me that you were ill. I think he came just in time.”

“What old man?” Snape asks, frowning up at Harry.

“The old man that visited you in hospital - the one with the long white beard and blue eyes, and odd socks.” Harry smiles. “I never caught his name.”

All the blood drains from Snape’s face. “Old man?” he hisses. “And he came to see you, and… what? Persuaded you to find me?”

“I met him first when you were in hospital - you were unconscious, and he came and said how proud he was of you for falling in love. I thought he’d probably visited you when I wasn’t there. And then he was at the sanctuary. He has the clearest blue eyes I have ever seen - they sparkle when he talks, don’t they?”

Snape is looking at him in horror.

“What’s the problem?” Harry asks. “I’d have been pleased to have someone like that looking out for me. He clearly knows you well.”

“He did,” Snape says, gravely. “Albus was the colleague I told you about, who jumped from the top of the hospital carpark.”

“He can’t have died, he visited you in hospital!” Harry insists.

“He did not, obviously,” Snape whispers. “I haven’t seen him since two days before he died, as I said.”

“Then it must be somebody else,” Harry begins.

“There is nobody else who fits that description,” Snape snorts. “It’s him.”

Harry lays his head against Snape’s chest, his heart pounding.

“He was the old man that said falling in love was like Spring?” Snape whispers. Harry nods. “Then I am blessed,” Snape murmurs. “And perhaps - just perhaps - he was my friend after all.”

“I’d say so,” Harry breathes.

“If he brought you back to me, he must be my Guardian Angel,” Snape says, and wraps an arm around Harry, and holds him tightly.

A flutter of birds passes the bedroom window; sunlight spills in between their wings.

The wind ruffles the budding trees outside. Daffodils bob their noses on the lawn.

Spring is here.

An owl takes off, and soars away into the distance, wings outspread.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment here or at [Livejournal](http://snape-potter.livejournal.com/3612506.html), [Insanejournal](http://asylums.insanejournal.com/snape_potter/1564221.html), or [Dreamwidth](http://snape-potter.dreamwidth.org/867235.html).


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